Gateway
by FlaviusAugustus
Summary: My first fanfic. The survivors of the great Human-Covenant war awaken something that has the power to cross realities, and cause a series of events that even the Forerunners could not have anticipated. Halo/Star Wars Clone Wars era
1. Chapter 1: Intrusion

Gateway

Prologue

The old wreckage drifted slowly towards a dark area in space, where one should have been able to see stars, but where there were no stars to be seen. Its occupants did not know the ancient and vastly powerful nature of the machine they were drifting towards, and even if they had, their limited minds would not be capable of truly understanding it. But such speculation is irrelevant, as the wreckage and its passengers drifted slowly towards the ancient structure, and to their respective destinies. They could not know what grand events that they were about to set into motion.

Chapter 1

Intrusion

Part 1: Captain

Captain Kepler stood at the bridge of his Acclamator-1 class star destroyer, one of the many that was serving in the vast Republic Navy during the Clone Wars. His ship carried a full complement of clones, armoured vehicles, and strikecraft. The troops nominally under his command numbered in the tens of thousands, an army capable of leveling entire worlds if left comparatively unopposed. However, unlike a typical star destroyer, his ship was assigned on a critical non-combat mission to a relatively uncharted area of space, and, even more unusually for a single ship separated from a fleet or armada, there were four Jedi Knights aboard.

Of course, being a naval captain, Captain Kepler was not privy to the mission details and objectives. All he knew was that there were Jedi on board that apparently needed an entire army to escort them to a useless, uncharted area of space. What he did not know was that that particular area of space had certain unique properties that led the Republic intelligence corps to suspect that the CIS was performing very strange and potentially dangerous experiments. Obviously, if these were experiments with weapons technology, than they could not be allowed to continue. And so, Captain Kepler and his Jedi moved towards their destination, unaware of the true nature of that little patch of space.

Part 2: Spartan

The Spartans are a legendary group of soldiers, responsible for the survival of humanity, and indeed perhaps the galaxy as a whole. One of their rank in particular, the Master Chief designated John-117, had performed feats seemingly impossible, though he was by this time considered KIA. It would have been a cause of quite some consternation within the news media (and therefore the human public) then, to find that an entire squad of these super soldiers were stowed away aboard a very small picket frigate, not they would ever know.

It's been one hundred years since the battle at Installation 00, and one hundred years since the Human-Covenant war had ended. Humanity remains comparatively weak; despite the great number of pod-born children and the government tax credits to encourage large families, the total human population still only numbers around 12.5 billion, a far cry from the tens of billions during the middle of the war. The resources required to restart the Spartan program only really became available twenty years ago, and the first batch of Spartan-IVs were just entering service. Unlike the controversial Spartan-IIs, Spartan-IVs were willing participants who joined the program at thirteen years of age, making them in some respects inferior. However, like the Spartan-III program, the genetic and biomechanical augmentations were significantly less lethal and possess a nearly 95% success rate. In addition, with the grudging help of the Sangheili, the MJOLNIR armour had been significantly upgraded from previous variants. The technological upgrades more than made up for the decrease in training time and intensity. In theory. The races of the former covenant were more than happy enough to consolidate their own empires. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae (that would be elites and brutes in English) skirmished a few times, but life in the galaxy was largely at peace.

Therefore, the presence of Spartans in a stealth cruiser was a suspicious circumstance. What wasn't known to a majority of the human populace was that the ONI teams investigating the portal generator under New Mombasa weren't just combing for Forerunner technology, which they salvaged plenty of. Their primary objective was to gain control of the slipspace portal generator within. That objective took the many brilliant science teams nearly a century to complete. They sent the rather oddly named _Kitten_ in the portal as a science vessel, but armed it to the teeth with experimental weaponry.

Brian-768 was busily cleaning out his experimental XMP-4a plasma accelerator when the prowler started shaking. Initially, he assumed it was standard turbulence as micrometeorite showers bombarded the prowler's shields, but revised his assessment when the shipboard AI, Caesar, started speaking. "All combat personnel to battle stations, repeat, all combat personnel to battle stations." Brian quickly reassembled his weapon and moved to the elevator to the bridge. The whole ten seconds the elevator took to take him up was excruciating. When he exited, the strangest sight of his life awaited him. "Captain, initiating evasive maneuvers!" "I want scans now!" "Where are we?" The bridge was in chaos, but not, as Brian had feared, because of an unknown enemy attacking. It was from the sight out the main viewscreen, the vast graveyard of ships, using designs a century old. "Must be wreckage from the Battle of the Ark," a random marine commented. Caesar manifested himself in the hologram station, "Based on preliminary scans from the wreckage, that analysis would be highly probable."

Brian's tactical mind quickly kicked in, as he analyzed any potential gain that could be salvaged. Even the Spartan team he was a part of had not been fully briefed on their objectives. They were only told to reconnoiter the area they were sent to for hostiles, as the possibility that the Jiralhanae would attack was still a possibility not very far removed from the minds of many humans and former Covenant races. It was during this analysis that Brian noticed a small light in the distance, like a ship burning up in an atmosphere. He calmly queried Caesar, "Do you detect any bodies with an atmosphere in this area?" "I -" The blinding white flash that emitted from the vicinity of the small light quickly cut out all conversation.

Part 3: Legionary

The Legionary rigidly examined his massive assortment of tools. Besides the extreme discipline and excellent training, well-made and technologically advanced equipment defined the Roman soldier like no other in the known galaxy. The typical soldier carried enough firepower to annihilate entire companies of less advanced armies. This particular legionary was outfitted with the standard body armour with a built in magnetic hard shield, a compact assault carbine that utilized nano-molecularly engineered high-explosive cores for shipboard combat, a modernized legionary shield with built in hard shields and electronic countermeasures, a gauss pistol sidearm, and a recoilless railgun that fired specialized chemical explosive rounds.

After going through the veritable battleship's armament worth of equipment, the Legionary proceeded up to the Roman ship's equivalent of a CIC, where he would receive his unit's orders. The Roman vessel, which had no name, since Romans did not care for such pointless activities as naming their spacefaring vessels, was extremely function based in design, with little room for comfort. The CIC was somewhat more expansive and open, however, with a wide variety of display screens projected in three dimensions for an optimal combat awareness for the combat command staff. It was here that the Legionary, that will henceforth be known as Marcus, stood at attention pending receipt of century (i.e., 100 men, a company) orders from the captain. It was also here that Marcus noticed the expanding blue light and what appeared to be a rending hole in space on the main viewscreen, immediately before the ship was sharply pulled in.

A/N: Well, there's the beginning of my very first fanfiction. I made sure to carefully research the specific statistics of the different factions, ships, weapons, etc. involved, so please notify me of any mistakes. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. To the Halo fans: My brother pointed out that the prowler is also a Brute vehicle in Halo 3. In this chapter, the term is utilized as a UNSC ship class designation, basically any ship with a stealth system with the tonnage of a cruiser or below. Hope you liked it!


	2. Chapter 2: First Contact

Chapter 2: First Contact

Captain Kepler's attention was immediately grabbed by the flashing lights on his tactical console indicated the presence of well over fifty ships, an impossibility in this region of space. Unfortunately, the viewscreens were unable to see past the veil of the nebula. His Republic intelligence liaison assured him, however, that the CIS research base was beyond the confines of the nebula. Still, it was a precarious situation, and the blasted scanners weren't helping by providing false readings.

The ship emerged from the nebula, into a small packet of space surrounded on all sides by the same celestial body. Intelligence, for once, had actually been correct. In the center lay a CIS docking station, with seventeen ships of varying classes currently docked or in orbit, including one of the massive Lucrehulk-class battleships. However, there was also a sun and a lush planet in the system. Kepler's single ship did not possess nearly enough firepower to challenge an entire CIS battle group, let alone an entire CIS planet.

The prowler shook violently as if it were a sailing ship back on Earth in the middle of a hurricane. Brian managed to anchor himself to the deck. Just as quickly, the shaking stopped.

"Lots of contact!" screamed a marine.

"Stealth systems are offline. Shields are offline. Recommend evasive maneuvers." Caesar calmly announced.

Someone with a distinct English accent spoke up, "Of course, Caesar."

Brian realized that he had actually never had a chance to meet the captain before, but he marveled at the skill with which he piloted the cruiser, swinging it underneath a very large circular ship that appeared to be some sort of battleship.

"I've never had the pleasure, Captain..."

"That'll be Commodore Day to you, Lieutenant."

Commodore Day was extremely young, only in his late twenties, surprising for someone of his rank. He wasn't very tall, but was somewhat intimidating nonetheless with his piercing blue eyes. It was rumored, though, that once he was off duty, he was a hell of a comedian. Brian supposed that the man must have had very high up ONI connections to land him this job.

"Caesar, hack into the systems of those ships and translate their languages. I'm fairly certain their computers still use binary." the Commodore ordered.

Captain Kepler stared in awe at the gaping blue maw rending in space above the CIS planet. The planet itself seemed almost superimposed with massive, glowing blue circuitry for a moment, before a vessel appeared to just fall out of the hole. He was then even more surprised when the ship pulled of a succession of quick maneuvers to avoid collision with the CIS ships in orbit, with a speed and grace seemingly impossible for a ship of its size. It looked to be about 600 meters long, about half the length of the Venator that Kepler was commanding, but it was still a large ship. Then, he saw the CIS ships locking into battle formations.

"Sir, it would appear that the enemy fleet is locking into battle formations and launching fighters. We are massively outgunned, and though I have managed to restore some shielding functionality, out chances of success are one to thirty-seven." Caesar reported.

Commodore Day thought for a moment. Decisions such as these over the lives of the soldiers under his command were never easy. "Caesar, charge the MAC guns and load missiles. We're going in."

The strangely named stealth cruiser _Kitten_ carried a wide assortment of next generation technologies, most of which were about to undergo their first practical field test. The ship was outfitted with three MAC guns, pointing forward and taking up much of the length of the ship. Each one was capable of accelerating a projectile to a small percentage of the speed of light. The ship was also outfitted with the new longbow missile. Unlike the traditional composite explosives of the old Archer missiles, the longbow carried a shock impact conventional chemical explosive as a starter, not as its main payload. The explosion from the initial detonation would activate the plasma explosive in the second stage, a much more powerful weapon than any previous UNSC missile ordinance loads. The third and final stage was a carefully mixed balance of chemical explosive designed for maximum hull damage. The theory was that the first two stages would weaken or destroy the shields, and the third stage would cause catastrophic hull damage. However, like the Archer, the Longbow missile was smaller than its Covenant counterparts and had to be fired in great quantities to cause any significant damage. In addition, new energy efficient pulse laser designs replaced half of the old 50mm autocannon for anti-fighter use. Like all UNSC ships, the _Kitten_ was outfitted with an more primitive variant of the Covenant shielding technology.

All of this massive firepower was loaded for combat as Commodore Day prepared for the first battle of his life.

Captain Kepler could only sag deeper into his command chair as he watched the spectacle unfold. The newcomers were charging straight into a CIS battle formation.

The _Kitten_ fired its MAC cannons first, at the lead CIS ship. The Providence-class ship was one of the backbone battleships of the Separatist Navy. That didn't make the MAC rounds any less devastating. The first two rounds shredded the shields instantaneously. The third then slammed into the bow of the Separatist ship, traveling straight through and out the other end, gutting the insides. From inside the _Kitten_, Brian could see the explosions rock the large battleship as it struggled to stay together. A handful of longbow missiles ensured that it did not.

Aboard the Republic ship, the clone commander on the bridge had only one remark, "That's damn impressive."

Captain Kepler, though he was by this time rendered completely mute by the mesmerizing events before him, could only nod in agreement.

Commodore Day wasted no time on cheering, unlike the rest of his bridge staff. He immediately targeted the next ship in the battle line. Their directed energy weapons, akin to plasma bolts or bullets made out of light, were already pummeling his shields. The MAC cannons were still recharging, so he would have to rely on the experimental longbows. His ship was armed with 45 such missile pods, and he unleashed over one hundred missiles in his first salvo. Enemy point defenses picked off a few, but they seemed to be designed to counter different threats than missiles. The rest impacted against the shields of what appeared to be a cruiser. The plasma warheads did their work, and the shields were disabled. The next salvo opened up multiple hull breaches and disabled all critical systems. Commodore Day watched the ship explode spectacularly with no small amount of satisfaction. The battle was going unusually well; it seemed as though this new enemy was not equipped to deal with the kinds of weapons employed by the UNSC.

One of the Republic ship's resident Jedi made his way up to the bridge. "Don't you think we should help these newcomers?"

"It seems they can handle themselves." the clone replied.

"Dammit soldier! I said get down to deck seven and help with those fires!"

Commodore Day's elation disappeared as soon as hid had arrived when the enemy cannon wiped out his shields and began chipping away at his hull. The external plating was stealth armour, it wouldn't stand very long against prolonged bombardment. On the bright side, his MAC guns were recharged.

"Caesar, target the enemy flagship, the donut shaped one. We're going in."

The _Kitten_ ignored enemy fire on all sides, charging straight towards the enemy flagship. Its MAC cannons tore into their target, but only succeeded in bringing down its shields. Commodore Day quickly revised his strategy.

"Caesar, I'm going to slingshot us around the planet. Make sure all are guns are hot again when I come out of the loop, and do your best to recharge the shields. Lieutenant, grab your Spartans. I want you to board that ship."

In the years since the Human-Covenant war, humanity had realized the necessity of a dedicated boarding craft. Thus, the Mosquito was born. Much like its biological namesake on Earth, the Mosquito parasitically latches itself onto its host, and is very difficult to destroy. Unlike the larger and more vulnerable Covenant boarding craft, Mosquitoes were smaller and carried fewer men, so each one lost meant a much smaller hit to the overall boarding crew. Not to mention, the damn things were quite fast. They were the perfect insertion craft for a team of four Spartans.

This particular Spartan squad was modeled after the later tactics of the Spartan-III program. Each member specialized in a handful of areas, and the team worked together as a cohesive whole, unlike the Spartan-IIs, who could become one-man armies at a moment's notice. Their leader was Brian-768. He specialized in marksmanship, engineering, and advanced infiltration/scouting. Charles-767, Brian's childhood friend, specialized in explosives, heavy munitions, and vehicular combat (read: blowing stuff up). Kim-812, the youngest, and the only female, specialized in electronic warfare. Finally, the most quiet, Matthew-785, specialized in close quarters combat and deep solo insertions. Rumour was that his entire family was killed in one of the Jiralhanae raids that occurred from time to time when some ships escaped from the Sangheili blockade. This squad was one of the newest groups of Spartans to be deployed, and they were about to be tested in their first major battle.

The Mosquito dropped with a lurch out of the fighter bay and rapidly accelerated into the blooming space battle between the UNSC naval fighters and CIS droids. After its decorated service and proven performance, the Longsword multirole fighter had been deemed too important to mothball in favor of new designs. Instead, it had been radically upgraded with more modernized technologies while still retaining classic characteristics. Four of these Mark II Longswords surreptitiously slid into formation around the Mosquito, protecting it from any potential harm as the _Kitten_ moved away, taking its AA batteries with it.

The Spartans on board felt a jolt. "Alright boys, you're in the clear. From your position, I'd say your fairly close to the bridge. Caesar's uploaded stolen schematics of the ship's interior to your HUD. Good hunting."

Brian watched as Charles planted a powerful directional charge on the door. "Right. We're good to go. How bad do you think the bodies will be mangled?"

"Charles, must you always take such a perverse pleasure in destruction?" Brian groaned.

"Of course, Brian. Clear the door."

The door exploded outwards, and the four Spartans leaped out, weapons drawn, to find... Shattered machines. Brian picked up a handful of pieces. "They seem to be fully mechanical soldiers. Bipedal. Same directed energy weapons as the ship. Their guns probably drain our shields, so take cover often."

-Aboard the bridge of the Confederacy of Independent Systems vessel _Liberator_-

"Sir, we have intruders on deck 57, not far from this location." a droid called out in an almost comically mechanical voice.

The Nemoidian commander of the CIS task group stationed in the middle of a forsaken nebula to defend a science team was having a very, very bad day. First, a Republic ship arrived, which meant the Republic had at least some knowledge of their secret project. Then, when he was going to derive a small amount of satisfaction from destroying that ship, a massive hole was torn in space and another ship came through, that he was forced to immediately attack to defend the Confederate investment in the forsaken system in the forsaken nebula in a galaxy at war. Then, that mysterious ship proceeded to destroy two of the ships in his fleet before pulling of a maneuver the likes of which he had never seen. And now, to top it all off, there was an apparent team of commandos boarding his ship.

"Order some battle droids there and activate shield barriers to lock off the hallways." he ordered.

-Spartan Wolf Team-

Brian stopped just in time to avoid being sliced in half by the energy wall that had just appeared in front of him. He called out to Kim, "Can you knock these things out?"

"Working on it!" she replied.

Matthew wordlessly flung Brian to the ground as an explosion burst uncomfortably close to the team.

"We've got incoming!" Charles yelled. "My motion tracker's picking up fifty-plus combatants at twenty-five yards!"

As the first droids rounded the corner, Brian noticed that the machines were similar to the remains they had found outside of their boarding craft. They also appeared rather flimsy, an appearance that seemed to be an accurate description of their durability when Wolf team opened fire and shredded the entire advance group in seconds.

"Well, that was fast." Kim remarked. "I've also cracked their code and deactivated their shield barriers."

"Excellent work. Team, move out." Brian commanded. "Objective is the bridge of the enemy vessel."

-UNSC Stealth Vessel _Kitten_-

"Caesar, ready those MAC guns. I want a targeting solution on the other battleship right away, we know we can take it out. Also, get thirty of the longbow pods locked onto one of their frigate. I'm sure it'll be sufficient." the Commodore ordered.

"As you wish, sir. Slingshot around the planet complete in three, two one...

-Spartan Wolf Team-

"We're right beneath the bridge. LT, have the team cover me while I plant these charges." Charles said.

-Bridge of the _Liberator_-

"How did they knock out the ray shields? How?" the Nemoidian commander was screaming. None of his droids could answer him. A massive explosion interrupted his tantrum.

"Up and over, Spartans!"

Brian and his team quickly destroyed most of the machines in the room and moved towards the commander, who quivered in fear.

"Magna Guards! Destroy these intruders!" The Nemoidian did not understand how four soldiers could infiltrate his massive battleship. His bodyguard of the elite Magna Guard droids would quickly rectify the situation, however.

"What are these things? They're way more difficult to kill than those other scrap heaps!" commented Charles.

Brian observed that Matthew was having an easier time of things, since he had been trained in close quarters combat. A quick draw of his shotgun blew off one of the machine's heads. To Brian's extreme suprise and consternation, the machine continued to attack Matthew, who drew two energy swords.

"Where'd he get those?" Kim asked as she struggled with a magna guard.

"A Sangheili Honour Guard gave them to him as a token of respect after Matthew beat him in one of our joint Spec-Ops/Spartan training sessions." Brian replied.

"He beat an Honour Guard and never told us?" Kim asked while ducking beneath a swing of the blasted machine's energy staff.

"Since when has he told us anything?" asked Charles, as he stuffed a frag grenade into the chest area of one of the robots. To his delight, it actually killed the damn thing.

The Nemoidian could only watch in horror. These commandos were holding their own, and the one that appeared to have two strange lightsabers was slaughtering his elite magna guard.

Matthew sliced open the last magna guard attacking Kim and turned towards the Nemoidian.

-UNSC Stealth Vessel _Kitten_-

Commodore Day watched as his attack plan unfolded magnificently. He was inflicting superior losses on the enemy. As the ship righted itself into a standard attack stance once more, he gave a command that the Marines onboard were no doubt ecstatic to hear.

"All troops to you embarkation areas. We're assaulting that planet. ODSTs, get ready to jump feet-first into hell."

Across the ship, there was a unified response: "Oorah!"

Then, the Commodore's comm unit beeped, "This is Spartan Wolf team, we have gained control of the bridge of the enemy vessel. What would you have us do with the captain?

"Keep him. He's a prisoner of war now." he replied.

"Caesar, can you remote control that battleship?"

A/N: Well, that ended up being really long. It's my first real attempt to do action and dialogue, I sincerely hope all of you liked it. And someone, anyone, please review!


	3. Chapter 3: Space War

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Someone pointed out the lack of indents, and it would appear that the doc manager doesn't transfer them from word, so I'll have to add them manually from now on. I apologize for any inconsistencies as a result. Someone also pointed out to me that the Acclamator-1 was an assault ship, not a star destroyer. However, I think it's still justifiably classed as a star destroyer because of its tonnage, weaponry, and the classic triangular design. Enjoy, and please review.

Chapter 3: Space War

Commander Henry Jacobson was rather proud of his Longsword Mk. II squadron, callsign Warhawk. It was unfortunate, then, that he had to be commanding them into the hell that was space combat once more. The UNSC squadrons were easily outnumbered twenty to one, yet they fought on, in order to preserve their host ship.

"Warhawk lead, you have a bandit on your tail." someone called out.

Jacobson swore as he wheeled the Longsword around. They were never designed for combat with such maneuverable enemies, let alone against thousands of them. He pulled the Longsword underneath an enemy frigate and swung over its other side, catching his pursuing enemy with his proverbial pants down. 50mm autocannon roared from his fighter, and his foe was shredded into little pieces of glittering metal.

Jacobson realized that his squadron couldn't hold out much longer. He had already lost half of them. Then, a thought struck him. Though the Longswords were easily outmaneuvered by the enemy craft, they carried much heavier munitions. Almost none of his squadron had used their missiles yet.

"Warhawks, form up on me. Our objective is that enemy frigate. Let loose with everything you've got."

From the chaos of battle, forty or so fighter coalesced into a triangular formation, aimed straight at one of the CIS's Banking Clans frigates, though the pilots hardly knew them as such. The vulture droids in combat around them weren't as capable as a sentient pilot, but they were still capable of detecting an attack pattern, and soon, they were swarming the group. Commander Jacobson winced as he saw more and more of his pilots drop off of his HUD. He could only pray that they had enough missiles left between the remaining fighters, though he was fairly certain that their target no longer had shields.

Of the forty fighters, only twenty remained. These twenty targeted all of their missiles on the engines of the Banking Clans frigate, and fired.

For three seconds, there was nothing but the streaking trails of the missiles homing in on their target. Then, there was a massive explosion, silent in the depths of space. Henry Jacobson could hear cheers from his surviving pilots, but there were few of them indeed.

"Command, this is Warhawk lead. We're getting ripped to shreds out here. Request permission to return to the _Kitten_."

"Warhawk lead, this is command. Permission granted. You gave them hell out there."

-Aboard the former CIS vessel _Liberator_-

Brian carefully assessed the situation. Even if Caesar could pilot the ship, there was still the matter of all the tangos that still had to be on board.

"Caesar, is there any way that you could clear the ship?"

"I've already deactivated all the combat automatons onboard. What do you think I am, human?"

"I get the idea." Brian muttered. "Have you got the ship ready yet?"

"Almost there."

-Aboard the Republic Acclamator-1 class assault ship-

Captain Kepler realized that the new arrivals might actually need help against the CIS. Certainly, one ship, no matter how powerful and skillfully piloted, could take on the entire battlegroup.

"Commander," he asked, "Are we now in a position to render assistance?"

"I believe so, sir."

Then they both saw the Lucrehulk-class command move.

The former CIS flagship opened fire with its many laser batteries in all directions, catching the rest of the CIS ships by suprise. Many of them had moved most of their shield strength to the parts of their ships facing the _Kitten_, and were totally unprepared for the barrage of firepower coming from inside their formation.

-UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

Commodore Day inwardly smiled with satisfaction as the enemy flagship started blasted apart the rest of the enemy fleet, but he still knew that there was no way that he could win the entire battle. The enemy still outnumbered him seven to two, and his longbow pods were running dangerously low on munitions. Then he saw a wedge-shaped ship move in from the edge of the nebula.

-Acclamator-1 Assault Ship-

Captain Kepler made up his mind quickly. Even with the Lucrehulk somehow annihilating its comrades, the strange ship would stand little chance.

"Commander, order everyone to battlestations. I want turbolaser batteries ready to fire as soon as we enter effective range. Target the bridges of the CIS cruisers."

The clone, ever professional, replied calmly, "Yes sir," betraying no emotion.

Sometimes, Captain Kepler mused, they really, really, creeped him out.

-UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

"Sir, the wedge shaped vessel is opening fire on the unknown contacts!" an adjutant yelled.

Commodore Day could only watch in confusion as torrents of lasers smashed into unshielded portions of the enemy ships, wreaking massive damage. He supposed that they had been waiting to see who was winning, then aid them. He didn't quite trust anyone's motives yet, especially after all the strange events of the last several hours.

"Caesar, I want you to get the Spartans off that ship, then activate the self destruct."

"Imperator."

Commodore Day sometimes wondered why the code hacks that made the AIs gave them personalities.

-Spartan Wolf Team-

Brian knew at least one of his squad would be quite happy when he relayed the order to abandon ship.

"Can you imagine how big this thing will explode? It'll be glorious!" Charles was practically jumping with joy.

"Charles, remind me again how you got into the Spartan program?" Kim asked.

"I got in, lady, because I can make anything go boom with extraordinary proficiency, and because of my devilish charm."

Brian groaned.

"Just board the damn dropship. Caesar, can you control this thing remotely?"

"Of course I can," the AI stated in an affronted manner, "However, you'll have to hack into its systems first."

"On it."

-In orbit around the unidentified planet-

The wreckage of the entire CIS battlegroup floated almost serenely in orbit. Though many droids had escaped their ship's destruction by fleeing via dropship to the planet below, the battlegroup's viability as a fighting force was all but gone. The first battle in what could be an entirely new war was over, at least in space.

Commodore Day wished he could contact his counterpart on the wedge-shaped ship, but Caesar had informed him that he had only partially gotten around to translating their language. It would come around in due time, he supposed. In the mean time, he had a ground war to look forward to.

A/N: It's considerably shorter than the previous, and has less action, but hopefully, it's a good setup for the next chapter. I'll try to be more clear with the timeline, tech, etc., and I'll also try to develope the characters more, but that'll have to wait a bit for later chapters.


	4. Chapter 4: Ground War

Sorry for the wait, people. I've been quite busy the last few days, and this chapter ended up getting a little longer than I intended, but hopefully it's worth it. Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Ground War

Private First Class Njaka was a curious specimen in a Marine Corps defined by discipline. By all rights, he was smart enough to be a rank officer, but he was too busy screwing around to care. Now, he was paying the price, as he lounged around in the main storage bay of the _Kitten_. He would only get to watch as his fellow soldiers got to fight a real enemy, as he scrubbed the decks for insubordination.

Small charges shot the drop pods out of the _Kitten _towards the planet it was orbiting above. Each one contained an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, an ODST. These were easily the most elite troops in the UNSC. Spartans didn't really count, since they were black ops. In the time since the Human-Covenant war ended exactly a hundred years prior, the ODSTs had seen a few upgrades, most notably their new energy shielding on par with the Mark V armour of Spartan II fame. They also received somewhat minor augmentations, though these weren't even close to even those of the Spartan-IIIs. Still, they were ferocious soldiers, and would fight hard to secure a landing zone.

Hundreds of these pods screamed out of the clouds, surprising the unaware CIS droids below. Some didn't activate their chutes, others lost control or were hit last minute by the awakening CIS AA installations. Most of their brothers, though, slammed into the ground as intended to carry on their fight. Charges detonated, and doors blew off of the pods. The ODSTs streamed out, quickly annihilating their opposition.

"This is Colonel Wellsworth. Objective is the anti-air weapons. Clear a path for our birds."

Wellsworth pulled out his M9S SMG, the successor to the venerable M7S of Human-Covenant war fame. It was greatly enhanced over its predecessor, with an increased 75 round clip, and an increased muzzle speed for its bullets. The old recoil problem had been somewhat resolved with smarter cartridge design and actuators to absorb some of the shock, but in sustained fire, it could still live up to the name "bullet hose."

He quickly pulled off several controlled bursts, blasting the heads off of several of the clunky battle droids. Then, he saw one of the much larger, silver armored machines that was firing its rapid-fire arm weapon and knocking out his troops. He fired at least half of his clip into it, but it still kept coming.

"Someone give me some fire support here!" he yelled over the battlenet.

A gauss sniper round shrieked across the field that was quickly becoming littered with shattered machines and a few human bodies, and hit dead center on the armored droid, all but exploding it. Wellsworth nodded his thanks to the sniper. The old sniper rifles had also been phased out, in favor of the new M101 magnetic linear accelerator rifle, commonly referred to as a gauss rifle, though in truth it was more of a railgun. It operated on the same general principles as the MAC guns and gauss cannons mounted on warthogs, but on a significantly smaller scale, using magnets to rapidly accelerate a high-penetration bullet to incredible speeds. Since it used the 12.7 mm ferrous-tungsten round, it also had fair anti-vehicular capabilities.

-In orbit above the unidentified planet-

A small device drifted through the wreckage of the CIS battlegroup, beeping ominously. It was cut short, however, as it was slammed aside by the heavily damaged UNSC stealth vessel moving through space.

Commodore Day stood at the bridge. The initial ODST landings seemed to be progressing well, and soon, they would have a foothold on the planet. He was interrupted from his musings by Caesar.

"Commodore, why waste men landing on this world? There's nothing here for us but casualties."

"I have a hunch, Caesar. A hunch that says this world is our only way back home." he replied.

"Take us around to the other side of the world and give me some space between us and that other ship. Also, make sure we have some good targeting solutions on their weapons systems and engines, so we can disable them should the need arise."

"It will be done, Imperator." Caesar's avatar winked off the console.

-Surface of the unidentified planet-

Mark Wellsworth cautiously kicked the remains of one of the robotic machines that he had recently been fighting. The battle had cooled down a bit, and he had had a chance to rest behind the burning wreckage of an enemy tank. He peered from around its corner, activating the zoom function on his visor. In the distance, over a ridge, were the enemy's anti-air artillery, the main objective of the assault. The veteran soldier heaved a sigh as he realized that the hardest of the battle was still before them.

"I want fireteam zulu up that hill over there to provide us with some overwatch. Hotel, you guys hit them from the right flank. Fireteam Charlie, flank left and try to get in behind them. Bravo and Alpha, you're with me. We're gonna hit the ridge." he commanded.

-UNSC High Command, 117 Station, in orbit around the UN capital world Earth-

Fleet Admiral David Xiang wasn't precisely sure why ONI Section 1 would call a high-priority meeting in the middle of the night, but he was sure that they had to have a hell of a good reason for it, unless they wanted him to ask the Secretary-General and cabinet to cut ONI funding. Having friends in high places was quite helpful indeed. He walked down the hallways to one of the situation rooms in the core of the station, where the meeting was taking place.

As he entered the room and sat down, the ONI officer immediately began speaking, with prior introductions or actions. "Gentlemen, at 0120 hours this morning, exactly three hours ago, we lost contact with the science prowler _Kitten_." The name earned some laughs from the more junior members present, laughs quickly silenced glares from the command staff.

"The signal took those three hours to travel through the Artifact's portal next to the ruins of New Mombasa. That's why we have the delay. Now, I'm sure you're all wondering, why am I, a ranking officer in the UNSC, sitting in this room listening about a _science_ prowler, of all things? Well, to a select few of you here, intelligence was available informing you that it was not a science prowler, but a stealth warship. The reason for the armaments is simple: We didn't know what we would find on the other end of the portal, but as we isolated what seemed the most obscure, yet highly important, Forerunner installation. We wanted to be safe. What we know now, is that it is transmitting a signal from the _Kitten_ itself, which appears to be fighting an unknown enemy. This was not unanticipated. Gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is top security clearance. I'm sure you won't be leaking this information to the press: The installation has a construct. It has communicated to us."

That drew several gasps. David Xiang never trusted spooks. Now he just trusted them even less. But surely, there was a military aspect to this meeting, otherwise, there wouldn't be so many admirals gathered. The ONI officer had started speaking again.

"It told us we could find him."

-Quarren colony world Pammant, CIS shipyards-

General Grievous was pleased with the progress of his new Providence-class flagship. It wouldn't be nearly as powerful and useful as his previous flagship, the Malevolence, but it would suffice for now. His good mood was tempered by his ever-present cough, and the distress call he had just received from one of his experimental weapons development facilities, stating that they were under attack from an invincible Republic ship. Grievous doubted that the Republic would just attack with one ship, no matter how invincible. They would have an entire fleet waiting for the counterattack. He whacked a command droid on the back of its head. "Assemble a fleet."

-Surface of the unidentified planet-

"Incoming!"

Colonel Wellsworth grabbed an ODST and him to the ground as some sort of artillery shell made of energy landed behind him, throwing him forward. A quick glance at his HUD confirmed that his shields had absorbed most of the impact. He quickly dragged his comrade up, and they resumed their hard scramble up the rocky ridge. Laser fire was pouring down. The enemy's standard combat robots were weak and stupid, he thought, but they were very numerous. Like grunts, in the stories his grandfather used to tell him about the Human-Covenant war.

He brought up his SMG in one hand and squeezed off a sloppy burst at the ridge, then leaped forward, belly down, as a tank fired over his head. The tank was firing into Bravo company, ripping them apart. A cursory look told him all he needed to know about the tank's potential weak spots. After it discharged another heavy round, Mark leaped up and sprinted as fast as he could towards the tank, lasers flying around him and hitting his shields.

He rolled as another powerful shot roared from the tank, grabbed a handhold on a ledge of rock, and hauled himself over on top of the tank. He noticed that the hatch on top was open, as what appeared to be a local commanding officer surveyed the battlefield. He quickly swung under and pulled off his grenade belt, priming one of them before throwing so that it wrapped around the machine's head. He then kicked it back inside the tank, and jumped off. There was a deafening explosion, and Mark landed on his chest hard.

"Colonel, you OK down there?" someone called.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Did Charlie get in behind them?"

"Yes sir," the soldier reported, "once you took out that tank, it was a cakewalk."

"Glad to hear it, trooper. Ugh," he said as he pulled himself up, "I'm getting too damn old for this kind of thing."

He stood on top of the ridge and looked down, gazing upon the vast field, and its very large cannons. They appeared to operate almost like flak guns when the drop pods were coming down. He also noticed the vast army of machine infantry arranged in precise blocks, like a high school marching instructor's dream.

"Erm, Colonel, I don't think we have enough guys to take them on..." an ODST commented.

-Accclamator-1 Class assault ship in orbit around the unidentified planet-

Captain Kepler stood at the bridge, looking down upon the CIS world. He supposed an orbital bombardment could clear the CIS off pretty fast, though his ship wasn't really the best equipped for the task. "Swing her about and bring our turbolasers to bear on strategic CIS positions on the planet." he ordered.

A hand grabbed his arm. "No. There's something about this planet. We must capture it intact." Captain Kepler turned to see who had dared to countermand his order to issue a harsh rebuke, only to see that it was Jedi Master Adi Galia. He gulped his annoyance back down. "As you wish, General." Sometimes, he held somewhat traitorous thoughts as to who should be in charge of the Republic's forces. While the Jedi were undoubtedly skilled warriors, Kepler resented the sway they held over all important decisions, and their over-merciful treatment of their foes.

"Very well then. All troops, prepare for assault."

In the massive hangar bays of the assault ship, tens of thousands of clone troopers moved in an orderly fashion to their battle stations. Thousands of them grabbed headed for the LAAT/i infantry gunships. Since they weren't sealed from the vacuum, the assault ship would lower into the atmosphere before sending all eighty of them, carrying 2400 troopers, to aerially bombard CIS positions and secure a landing zone. The massive ship angled downward, and began its descent.

-ODST 3rd Legion-

"Jesus, do you see the size of that thing?" an ODST remarked as the assault ship descended in the distance.

"From the scans the _Kitten_ ran, it's only about a hundred meters longer, at 752 meters, but it's quite wide. I think it's a troopship."

"Sir," one of the recon teams on the ridge called, "We'll hook up our scopes to your visor. You've got to see this up close."

The gunships flew downward, strafing the ground with their heavy lasers. Hundreds of droids were instantly destroyed by the combined firepower. The gunships were taking heavy casualties too though, as the AA artillery on the ground and the droids armed with homing missiles began to return fire. Dozens of gunships were knocked out of the sky, and soon, the air above the plains was choked with smoke and explosions.

"They disembarked what looked like a total of around 1600 troops earlier, but I'd say they probably did more than that. My vision was limited." one of the recon snipers reported.

"On the bright side, they're not shooting us, and the AA is occupied now." Wellsworth said. "Command, this is the 3rd Legion, the AA threat has been... distracted."

"O.K., boys, we're sending in the birds. Get an outpost up and running."

-Aboard the Confederate flagship _Invisible Hand_-

General Grievous stood on the bridge of his new flagship, the _Invisible Hand_. It was at the head of a fleet of fifty ships, far more than enough to destroyer whatever the Jedi had in store for them, Grievous was sure. He would not go in solo again. Of course, he had no idea that Jedi weren't all that he would be fighting.

-UNSC Forward Operating Base Alpha, on the surface of the unidentified planet-

ODST Colonel Mark Wellsworth looked over the rows of gleaming new M901 Boar tanks being dropped off at the outpost. It was about time that they received some decent firepower; the moment the gunships stopped their strafing runs and retreated to their ship, the tanks rolled right over what was left of the opposition. It was almost unfair.

The Boar was similar in general design to the classic Scorpion that was the staple of many battles against the Covenant. However, it had more angled ablative armour, with a refractive surface to deflect and disperse energy weapons more effectively, a lesson learned the hard way against the Covenant. It also had an upgraded engine, but movement speed remained largely the same after all the new armour add-ons. It came in two variants: the M901a main battle tank, with an upgraded 90mm gauss cannon, and the same standard machine gun of the Scorpion, and the M901b heavy tank, with a cannon designed to fire shells that carried a plasma explosive instead of conventional chemicals, and a plasma accelerator instead of the old chaingun, which fired plasma contained to the point where it seemed as dense as a solid projectile. In addition, the M901b possessed shielding, similar to that of Covenant capital ships, where the shield seemed like a bubble, rather than the skin-clinging shielding of the Spartans and Sangheili. It represented all of the technological advancements that the UNSC had made, but it was still pretty damn expensive.

With all of the heavy vehicles and weaponry assets from the _Kitten_ transferred to the outpost, the potential to launch an effective campaign had been unleashed. Pelicans regularly moved around the base, offloading vehicles, supplies, and ammunition. Squads of marines hustled back and forth, conducting drills and preparing for the inevitable conflict. In the midst of all this military posturing, there were two things that stood out above all else: a lonely African man swabbing the back of a landed Pelican, and the squad of four Spartans that stood as still as statues in the middle of the open space at the vehicle depot.

However, no one would really get a chance to comment on those two things, as a voice echoed from the outpost's loudspeakers, "All UNSC personnel that have been given designated combat duties, gear up. Scans have detected what appears to be the enemy headquarters nestled up in the mountains approximately twenty klicks from here. Move out, marines!"

Private Njaka, who was swabbing the inside of the pilot's cabin, was surprised when a load of marines came on board, followed by the pilot. None of them seemed to notice him. The pilot quickly grabbed the controls and began easing the Pelican off the ground, and swung it around towards their objective. Njaka fell over, and the clunking noise he made when his face became very well acquainted with the floor attracted the pilot's attention.

"Who're you?" he asked in confusion.

"Private First Class Taylor Njaka, reporting for duty, Sir!"

"Well, sit your ass down, private, we're going in hot." the pilot replied.

Explosions began to rock the Pelican as AA dotted the air with fire and smoke. "Hold on boys!" the pilot yelled.

Time seemed to slow down for Taylor as a flak shell moved right towards his Pelican. It exploded right beneath them, and Taylor could hear the garbled screams of the men in the cabin as they were thrown around like rag dolls, then the rushing air that signaled a breach. Then there was black, and nothing else.

- Aboard the Confederate Flagship _Invisible Hand_-

General Grievous saw the remains of the CIS battlegroup that once guarded the planet sparkling in orbit. It would be beautiful, he thought, if they had been the enemy's ships, not his own. "Sir, we detect one Republic Acclamator-1 class troopship holding position to the east of our planetary command center, and an unknown faction holds a fortified position to the west. Out probes report an unknown ship holding position on the far side of the planet." a battle droid reported.

"Take three Munificent-class cruisers and destroy that troopship. I will scout out this new presence."

-Admiral Xiang's office, 117 station-

Against the ONI officer's protests, Admiral Xiang was going to several people with parts of the information. First, he headed to the U.N. Secretary General's office and informed her of the developments. She fervently insisted on peaceful contact, but Admiral Xiang was less confident in such an optimistic outcome. He then decided to call on an old friend, a Fleetmaster for the Sangheili. David believed that if there was a war to be fought, then it had best be fought with every ally available. No doubt ONI would disapprove, but they didn't really approve of much anyway. He motioned to one of his aides, "Lieutenant, I want a frigate prepped for a long range patrol in under an hour, crewed with my old outfit. Step on it."

-Surface of the unidentified planet, near the CIS research facility/fortress-

Taylor was feeling groggy, rather like the morning after he had a few too many beers and vomited over his commanding officer's favorite shoes. He could hear muffled sounds, the distant echoes of explosions, the dull pops of smalls arms fire, the faint screams of the wounded and dying. Everything sounded and felt like it was deep underwater, distorted and thick. As his vision and hearing cleared, he could feel his eyes being stung by acrid smoke, and hear the crackle of a fire. Experimentally, he tried to move his body, but to no avail. He took stock of his surroundings. He was in the doorway to the cockpit of the Pelican, his legs pinned underneath a fallen weapons locker. The shattered bodies of the marines lay splayed across the seats that they had until recently been occupying. Then, Taylor heard a faint moan from the cockpit. The pilot was still alive.

"Hold on!" he hollered. "I'm going to get both of our sorry asses outta here!"

He reached for the torn seatbelts of one of the marines, trying not to look in the dead man's face. He looped it around the end of the locker, and desperately tugged away at it. Finally, it gave way and came off of him. Choking on the smoke, he moved into the cockpit. The pilot seemed to have suffered a head injury, and there was shrapnel lodged in his right knee. Taylor grabbed an assault rifle from one of the fallen marines, and fired the armour-piercing bullets not at the windows, which were quite resilient, but at the frames, already weakened by the impact. They buckled, taking the windows with them, exposing the cockpit to the raging battlefield. "Hang on," he grunted, as he slung the pilot onto his shoulder and tried to climb out of the cockpit.

A hand grabbed his shoulder as he continued to attempt to pull the wounded pilot out. Taylor looked up to see an arm with a red cross emblazoned on it.

"What's your name marine?" the medic shouted.

"Taylor Njaka," he replied, too tired to even manage to yell it.

"Well, Njaka, you aren't going to lift a wounded man out of this cockpit by yourself, especially not when you're wounded yourself. Let me give you a hand there."

The two of them dragged the wounded man out of the flaming cockpit, seemingly oblivious to the firestorm of lasers, bullets, rockets, and even plasma flying all over the battlefield. They managed to drag the pilot to a small rock outcropping, as artillery tore the ground around them.

"Cover me!" the medic yelled, "This guy isn't gonna make it without a quick field surgery!"

Taylor nodded an affirmative, and sprinted to the next group of rocks, diving into cover as a laser burst against his left arm. He did a quick check; the armour was badly burned, but his arm was still functional. Peeking out, he fired off a short burst from his MA7 assault rifle, taking the head off of an advancing droid. Like much of the UNSC arsenal, the MA7 was an upgraded variant of a previous design, in this case, the MA5C. Accuracy was known to be a horrendous issue with the MA5 series, so the MA7 was designed with a gyro-stabilizer and a barrel that siphoned off excess gasses, reducing recoil. The side effect of this modification was that the MA7 had a much shorter, sharper crack as a sound rather than the full bang of the MA5 series weapons, and that the weapon could be made shorter and lighter, since the need for an additional length of rifling was no longer necessary. With a smarter cartridge design and redesigned clip, the MA7 was also capable of holding 75 bullets, a significant improvement over the MA5B's 60. With sustained fire of more than 4.5 seconds, however, recoil becomes more and more of an issue when using the MA7, so Marines were still trained to fire in controlled bursts.

Taylor quickly squeezed off several more bursts, watching as the heads and bodies of the droids shattered into sparkling fragments. In the distance, he could hear a thumping, accompanied by an odd artificial sound that gave away the use of an energy weapon. Looking into the sky, he saw bolts of energy raining down, and threw himself over his cover as they exploded with tremendous force into the front of the UNSC line. He looked back to the outcropping where the medic and pilot had been, and saw only a charred crater. He reflected upon how the medic had given his life to save another's, only to have them both taken by an infernal war machine. Taylor looked over the crest, and saw a vast square of the machines approaching the front line, crossing no man's land. He decided the pilot's sacrifice would not be in vain, and ran up onto the crest.

" Come and get me, you bastards!"

He let loose a torrent of bullets, tearing into the formation of droids. Boot camp training be damned. He stood on that hill, firing away as lasers flew around him. Many hit him, charring his chestplate and burning his arms. He stood until his left leg was shot, and he could stand no more. Still, on his knees, he fired, stopping only to reload, as a blind rage consumed him.

Colonel Mark Wellsworth watched from behind some hastily erected cover with amazement as the attention of the vast formation of droids was drawn by a lone wounded marine standing on a small hill, firing away at them. He saw the marine take shots to the chest and arms, and one on his knee, bringing him down, but he kept fighting.

Taylor was vaguely aware that some machines had clambered up to his spot, and he realized he was out of ammunition. He started wildly swinging his rifle as a blunt weapon, until something hit his head and he went black.

Mark saw the Marine, almost in slow motion, as he pulled the trigger and nothing came out. He saw the marine unleash a feral cry, and start swinging his weapon as a club. At last, one of the heavily armored silver robots knocked him out.

"Alright men," he called, "Forward!"

A mass of hundreds of individual marines and ODSTs surged over their makeshift defenses, followed by groups of armor and light vehicles, towards the thousands of droids awaiting them. The marines and ODSTs fought valiantly, but they were easily outnumbered a thousand to one. Droid and human alike struggled in hand to hand combat as they closed in.

"Command, this is Colonel Wellsworth. We're getting slammed out here! We need air support NOW!" he screamed into his headset.

"Roger that, Eagles on their way."

The AC-225 Eagle was the successor to the AC-220 Vulture, a heavily armed and armored aircraft that helped the UNSC win many a fight. It still retained the characteristically heavy armor, as well as the forward cannon and missiles, but it had been upgraded with energy shielding, a gauss turret on its underside, better warheads, and was larger, able to ferry fresh troops into battle. The only 5 of these that the _Kitten_ were now ready to rain death and destruction upon these newfound foes. They roared overhead, though they were still quite slow, opening fire with a massive barrage of high-explosive missiles deep into the droid formations so as to avoid friendly fire. The explosions tore apart machines and sent pieces of droids flying high into the air. They weren't going to receive any respite, as the cannons mounted on the front of the Eagles opened up, shooting chunks out of the sea of machines. The gauss turrets swiveled and locked onto enemy vehicles, destroying them with lethal precision. In minutes, the tide had turned, and the UNSC began storming up the steep slopes of the enemy citadel, as upgraded Shortsword bombers and the Eagles unleashed massive amounts of firepower on its defenses.

Mark leaned over the marine who had held off the enemy long enough for support to arrive. He was, miraculously, still alive. He called for a med-evac. If any soldier deserved to live more than the others, it was that one.

The battle raged on for several more hours, but with the arrival of heavy air support, the CIS positions were strategically indefensible, and the research facility had been captured. All seemed well, but the UNSC was quite unaware of the impending attack from Grievous's reinforcement fleet. Their day was about to become a hell of a lot more painful.

-Aboard UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

Caesar materialized on the AI hologram panel, looking, for the first time in his short AI lifespan, surprised. "Commodore, you need to see this. I'm reading ... an anomaly. Sir, it seems . . . Forerunner."

A/N: Well, there it is. So, you can see that the Commodore's hunch was justified, as there is an apparent Forerunner artifact in the Star Wars universe. There ended up being less ground combat than I intended, but hopefully it's still enough to satiate your tastes. Major plot developments still to follow, and that third universe still hasn't shown up...


	5. Chapter 5: Artifact

A/N: Sorry for the hiatus. I was quite busy over the 4th of July weekend, what with the family coming over and all. Anyway, in between family dinners, my job, summer homework, and playing the hell out of Mass Effect 1 and 2 (You should, if you haven't. Buy, don't pirate. End mini rant), I manged to hammer out another chapter. The stakes are raised, and tensions run high, as the battle begins to near its climax. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed righting it.

_My creators spent countless millennia perfecting me, eons of work towards a singular goal. They were unparalleled in their science, but even with knowledge so vast as to be able to create star systems and entire worlds at will, they struggled to pierce the resilient barrier between realities. Slipspace, as you humans call it, the pinnacle of their science, was indeed multidimensional, between realities, but knowing how to leave a universe is not the same as finding your way into someone else's. As my creators, your, "Forerunners," neared perfection in their work, tragedy struck. The Flood were a threat unparalleled in nature, incomprehensible to even the mighty creators. Softened by a hundred thousand years of peace, even they could not stop to all-consuming hunger of the Flood, and their work on me was forgotten. When the Halo arrays fired, I knew that they would never return to complete the work that they had started. But not all was lost, for they had left enough data with me, that I could complete myself. And so, slowly, clumsily, and often futily, I have labored for another hundred thousand years to complete myself. My creator's greatest work, still stands. Their existence will never be forgotten, with such a monument to stand for them. The possibilities are endless, with so many different realities to explore. But, wherever there are living organisms, there will be war, and I fear that the inheritors of all my creators' work will suffer that scourge of war once more. I will watch, as the machinations now in motion are beyond my control. I will protect the legacy of the creators, and I will see it come to fruition. I am Gateway. _

Chapter 5: Artifact

-Aboard the UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

Commodore Day was, for the first time in his short life, completely shocked. A Forerunner artifact? Where were they? "Forerunner? You're sure?"

"I am 98.7634% certain, Commodore."

"This day just got a hell of a lot more complicated. Wolf team! I want you suited up and ready to go in twenty minutes. You're going to investigate that artifact."

"In addition, pickets and sensor probes have picked up ships, apparently reinforcements for the ones we destroyed."

"How many?"

"In excess of thirty ships. I'd say about forty to fifty."

"Bloody hell..."

-Republic Acclamator-1 class assault ship-

"Sir."

Captain Kepler looked up from his situational map to address the clone now speaking to him.

"The unidentified contacts have captured the CIS stronghold and research facility. We may not want to attack it for fear of reprisal. However, they seem to have ignored another facility our scans of uncovered. I suggest a team of ARC troopers and Jedi, since it appears to be underground and tightly confined."

"Alright then, send in your men. We've got a problem though," Kepler motioned at the maps, "A CIS reinforcement fleet arrived. 50 ships, easy. Whatever they've got here, it's important. Capture that facility at all costs. I'll delay them."

"It's been an honour, sir." the clone replied. He saluted, then about-faced and left Kepler to his planning.

-Aboard the Confederate flagship _Invisible Hand_-

General Grievous paced the decks of his flagship. Whoever these new foes were, they would have to reckon with him, first. Grievous had defeated Jedi masters and clone armies. He was not about to be stopped by some lost starship. His opinion of his own superiority was quickly revised, however, when three MAC rounds slammed into his lead cruiser when it came into view of the _Kitten_. It was shredded with fearsome precision and efficiency. "All ships! Reallocate shield strength to the forward arrays!" Grievous ordered.

-UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

"Crewman, I want those guns prepped NOW! I don't give a good god damn if the reactors overload, because if you don't recharge those MACs, we're dead anyway!"

Commodore Day was understandably frustrated. No matter what he did to try to make the best out of a bad situation, a higher power always seemed to throw an even bigger obstacle in his way. For instance, the fleet before him.

"Commodore, the enemy ships have reallocated shield strength to the likely trajectories of our MAC shells." Caesar reported.

"Use the longbows; arc them around the strongest areas of the shields." Apparently, the enemy admiral wasn't exactly an idiot, unlike the previous one. Commodore Day was determined to go down fighting.

-Confederate flagship _Invisible Hand_-

Grievous watched as his foe arced his missiles around the strong areas of another cruiser's shields, hitting the now weakened side portions and easily punching through into the hull. One lucky missile made it into the Cruiser's reactor core, and the darkness of space briefly lit up with harsh light. Grievous took out his frustration on an unfortunate battle droid, crumpling its head like a soda can. This foe was tenacious and difficult to destroy. As Grievous examined their ship, he noticed what might have been a fatal flaw. It's main weapons were only capable of firing forward, while Grievous's warships had plenty of power concentrated in their broadsides. If he could flank the ship...

"All ships, encircle that hostile vessel! Utilize broadside weaponry!"

-UNSC stealth vessel _Kitten_-

"Longsword squadrons are almost out of operational capacity. Should we pull them out?" someone on the bridge staff asked.

"No. We'll need every asset we've got out there."

Commodore Day sighed. He hated consigning his men to their deaths like that, but he really didn't have a choice if he was to try to get everybody out alive.

"The enemy encirclement has been completed, sir. We're taking sustained fire from all sides." Caesar noted.

"Alright Caesar, you've done more than enough. I'm ordering you to abandon ship, with the rest of the crew. I'm going to pilot it in manually."

"With all due respect, sir, only Captain Keyes has ever pulled such a maneuver off. You can't do it without my help."

"Have it your way. Get a targeting solution on any ship in our way. Take out any fighters trying to attack our escape pods."

The _Kitten_ accelerated towards the planet as if there were not capital ships in its way, firing all of its available ordinance as it went. The ship in front of it absorbed the MAC rounds with its shields, but could not withstand the hundreds of longbow missiles that followed, detonating in a spectacular explosion and making way for the _Kitten_. As it entered the atmosphere, the hull began to glow white hot from the reentry heat, and external pieces of the ship began to tear away, along with damaged hull components. Only a Halcyon had been known to withstand this kind of punishment, and it had been commanded by one of the finest captains the UNSC had ever known. Still, Commodore Day had to try.

Commander Henry Jacobson looked at his tactical HUD. It indicated that only three of the _Kitten_'s complement of longswords were still intact. They were all running low on munitions, and with the _Kitten_ entering the atmosphere at high speeds, they weren't going to get a chance to rearm any time soon. His autocannons traced fiery lines across space, obliterating a tight formation of enemy fighters. There was no time to celebrate, however. The enemy appeared to be targeting the throngs of escape craft jettisoning from the _Kitten_. "All surviving members of Wahawk squadron, this is Warhawk lead. Cover those escape pods. They're not going to get to our boys without flying through our burning wreckage."

The three fighters reformed, and started systematically destroying the fighters attempting to fire on the escape pods. The fundamental flaw of much droid programming was the single-mindedness with which they approached their tasks. In this case, many didn't return fire against the longswords even as they were being tailed, negating their maneuverability advantage and giving the three remaining pilots an easy lane of shots to line up. However, an increasing amount of escorts began dogging on their tails, forcing them to break off and engage. They had done their job, though, as the escape pods entered the atmosphere and headed towards the safety of the base.

The last of Warhawk squadron fought desperately for their lives, swarmed by hundreds and thousands of vulture droids. Ironically, the overwhelming numbers were to their advantage, as enemies held fire for fear of friendly fire and presented an easy-to-hit canvass of targets. As they too dived down towards the safety of the planetary bases and their AA defenses, Warhawk 3 was hit in the tail by a flurry of lasers, knocking out his engines and making him easy prey for the rest of the enemy. Now the squadron only had two remaining members as they entered the atmosphere at a much higher speed than their fighters were designed for.

They sailed into the atmosphere, the area around them filling with lasers and explosions as the CIS gave chase. Alpha Base was only 100 km away.

90 km. Bandits on the tail.

80 km. Near hit. Armour damage.

70 km. Bingo fuel. 60/40 chance of running out before reaching the base.

60 km. Two's thrusters were hit. An explosion lit up the craggy rocks beneath Jacobson. No time to grieve, only time to survive.

50 km. Fuel too low to make it to base. Jacobson decided to make a diversion, charging headlong back into the swarm, expending the last of his missiles and autocannon shells. He had been so close, but he was determined to make his last moments in service of Earth and her Colonies. Then, the darkness claimed him as numerous hits detonated his engines and sent him spiraling down to the planet.

-Spartan Wolf Team-

Brian moved carefully into position with his Spartan team. According to Commodore Day, capturing the artifact could be their only way home. It sounded rather like he knew much more about this mission and their location than he was letting on. The entrance to the artifact was small, just a circular door on the ground. A casual passerby would have either missed it completely, or thought it was some sewage system. Brian knew it was much larger from the scans, at least a mile in diameter and several thousand feet deep. What Brian didn't know was that he was being watched.

Behind the grassy hill overlooking the small entrance, four ARC troopers and two Jedi watched. They had been attempting to gain entrance to the suspected CIS base for an hour, to no avail, and concealed themselves as the newcomers entered the area. One of the Jedi was Darrus Jeht, a master and the general of the ground troops deployed on the planet. The other was young knight Artus Orkun, one of the many young Jedi thrust into the battlefield by the demands of the Clone Wars.

Brian moved his palm over the door, and a Forerunner projection appeared. His hands moved almost of their own accord, like they already knew what the symbols meant. Arcane glyphs not witnessed by anyone for a hundred thousand years whirled across the air around Brian, as the aperture on the ground opened up.

"Unbelievable." one of the ARCs said.

Darrus Jeht quickly analyzed the situation. These unknown outsiders had just opened the door to a secret CIS research facility, yet they had been firing on the CIS earlier. Perhaps they were going to make amends, or, they had a splinter faction that wanted to join the Seperatists. Either was unacceptable. He ordered his clones to cover him.

Brian's motion tracker picked up movement behind him. His entire squad quickly swung around, and leveled their weapons at the threat. There was a man, a human, standing on the hill. "Who the hell are you?" Brian asked, more to himself than to the stranger.

"I am Jedi Master Darrus Jeht, and I request that you step aside and grant us entrance into this facility."

Several thoughts swirled through Brian's head. He hadn't expected any humans, much less humans that spoke a language that closely resembled English. Still, English-speaking humans or not, this Forerunner artifact was their objective, and if the commodore was right about it being their way home, they wouldn't give it up without a fight.

"This Forerunner artifact is our birthright, our inheritance left behind by those before us. It is also our only possibility of getting home, so no, you're not taking it."

Darrus mentally sighed. This was going to be a little harder than he thought it would be. He noticed Artus standing up to speak. "We claim this Separatist facility in the name of the Grand Army of the Republic. Step aside, or risk war."

Brian wasn't entirely sure who these Separatists were, but he knew that the artifact was most certainly Forerunner. "This is not a facility, it's an artifact. You have no need of it, and you cannot even begin to imagine what its purpose is or what lays within."

Darrus was alarmed at the rate at which this exchange was spiraling out of control. Before he could try to calm everyone down, though, Artus started speaking again. "Stop cowering behind your lies! You must be Separatists as well. If you surrender to us, we will guarantee you fair treatment."

Brian mentally scoffed at the young man. He was dressed in plain robes, probably lightly armed, and he was demanding that a Spartan surrender to him. "I think not. Attacking us would not be in your best interests."

Darrus shouted, "Artus, stop! This is madness. We can't attack strangers!"

The words fell on deaf ears, however, as the young Jedi activated his lightsaber. The strange soldiers already had all their weapons pointed at the pair of Jedi, in an impressive display of reflexes. Artus took a step forward, and a hail of bullets screamed towards him. He swung his lightsaber around, melting many in a puddle before him. However, since these were bullets, the slightest bit of a bullet not melting would spell trouble, as a few tiny pieces of metal flew through and clipped the Jedi.

Darrus stepped in front of him, quickly realizing that the lightsaber was ineffective against so many projectiles. He put up his arms and used the force, watching as bullets collected in front of him.

"Kim, I want a reading on that guy! What the hell is he doing?" Brian shouted over the roar of automatic weapons. Their weapons were having no effect. No wonder they didn't wear any body armour.

"No abnormal readings. Whatever he's doing, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. There are also four other beings attempting to flank us on my motion tracker." she replied.

Brian heard clicks as the assault rifles' clips ran dry. The Spartans switched weapons, and Matthew pulled out his dual energy swords. The ARCs rose in a perimeter around them, firing their blasters at the Spartans. The Spartans were already moving, though, and were in cover before most of the ARCs even had a chance to pull off a shot. Bullets ricocheted off of the heavy armour that the ARCs wore as they too ducked into cover.

Darrus checked Artus briefly. He would require medical attention later, but he would be okay for the time being. However, that meant that Darrus was the only Jedi in the fight as he ignited his lightsaber and charged towards the armoured soldier with the strange swords.

Matthew noticed the man running towards the squad, but before he had a chance to attack, Brian fired a burst of assault rifle bullets at the man, who simply stopped them in the air as he had before. Matthew waited until the other man seemed his most confident, right before he would have struck, before he swung underneath him and rolled.

Darrus saw the man and swung his lightsaber, but he simply wasn't there anymore. He whirled around just in time to see the armoured person bearing down at him, and barely managed to parry his blows.

Brian saw Matthew flow like water, with speed and grace as he dueled the robed man with the strange energy blade. He had bigger things to worry about though, such as being pinned by an enemy who's armour seemed impervious to small arms fire. He pulled out his gauss rifle and peeked it around cover, and fired.

Darrus saw one of the ARCs hit by a blazing flash of blue that carved ripples across the air, flinging him over the top of the hill. He parried another blow from his adversary, before desperately using the Force to fling a rock at him. The rock impacted hard, but seemed to only succeed in causing a glowing gold film to envelope the armour for a few seconds.

Matthew grunted at the impact of the stone block. It only put a small dent in his shields, but it had distracted him from his offensive, and he saw the robed man swing his weapon.

Darrus was shocked as his lightsaber rebounded with tremendous force off of the soldier, as the gold glow flashed brightly.

Matthew's shields flashed out of existence, and he quickly resumed his offensive to buy time for them to recharge. Apparently, those energy weapons didn't pierce through shielding.

Artus was quite groggy, hearing the muffled sounds of weapons fire all around him. He could feel numerous very small objects burning as they lodged in him. As he opened his eyes, he saw Darrus locked in a fierce duel with one of the strange soldiers. He reached out with the Force, to see whether he could manipulate their minds and distract them, but was filled with dread when he could feel none of their presences, as if they weren't alive at all. In spite of his injuries, he managed to prop himself up, and leaped forward to destroy their foe.

Brian threw a grenade over cover, towards one of the enemy commandos, who rolled to avoid it. In that moment of safety, Brian leaned out of cover with his gauss rifle, and shot the soldier in the chest, blowing a massive hole clean through the armour. Then he saw the other robed warrior leap into the duel between Matthew and the older man.

Matthew saw the other person leap into the fray, and quickly parried him. They were slowly wearing him down, backing him into a corner and preparing to finish him. If a single swing from their swords could knock out his shields, two would certainly kill him. They both moved ever faster and swung more powerfully, gaining confidence as they backed Matthew against one of the large stone boulders. As they moved in for the killing blow, at their most confident and competent, Matthew struck. He attacked with his dual swords with lighting precision, trapping the blades of his adversaries between the twin blades of either energy swords. Then, with an incredibly powerful twist of his wrists, he disarmed both at once. The older, more capable one's weapon was flung next to Charles, who quickly snatched it up. The other one was not quite so lucky, as he seemed to use that power of theirs to maintain a steel grip on his sword. Unfortunately, his arm wasn't made out of steel, and snapped in three places with audible cracks as he writhed in pain. Matthew then confiscated his weapon as well.

Darrus bowed his head in surrender, preparing for his inevitable death. Instead, he felt an armoured glove pull his face up. He heard no voice speak to him, but the soldier motioned for him to come with him as he slung Artus over his shoulder.

Brian was awestruck as Matthew pulled off his brilliant finishing move, when he had seemed utterly defeated. He quickly rushed over to the hostages, daring the rest of the commandos to fire on him.

Darrus heard a cold, clipped voice emanate from the helmet of the other soldier, whom he assumed was the commander. "You're coming with us. Insurance. Don't try anything." He resigned himself to his fate. "ARCs, return to our base. Don't interfere." The small group made its way down into the hatch, and into the unknown.

A/N: So, you finally get to see a fight between Jedi and Spartans, though, to be fair, there were more Spartans. The lightsaber can cut through any known metal, given enough force and time applied, but it has issues with shields, according to Star Wars canon, so the Spartans have a small advantage. That, and Matthew is quite badass. I hope you enjoyed it, and please review!


	6. Chapter 6: Setbacks

A/N: Here's a relatively short chapter, that leads into the next chapter. I was hoping to get the 7th chapter up on the 7th day of the 7th month to appease Bungie's little tradition, but alas, it didn't work out. Thanks for all the feedback so far. Special mention to Amir-015, who has given me plenty of ideas (including some of the missile tactics used by Commodore Day to avoid concentrated shields). Enjoy.

Chapter 6: Setbacks

-UNSC Stealth Vessel _Kitten_-

Commodore Day struggled to maintain the integrity of the _Kitten_ as it entered the atmosphere. Explosions rocked the hull as the ships above continued to rain fire down upon the doomed vessel, pursuing it to the rapidly approaching planet beneath. When Commodore Day was certain that they were too deep in the atmosphere to pull a quick turnaround, he gave a voice command to his console, "Release all nuclear warheads in a spread pattern. Set to free target acquisition. Authorization Day Gamma Three."

The Commodore pulled on the controls, leveling out the ship as it slammed into the ground. Massive chunks tore off and explosions rocked the ship, while in the sky, dozens of nuclear warheads found targets to seek and destroy. Dust and black smoke choked the air, from the wreckage of the destroyed vessel as fires raged.

-Confederate Flagship _Invisible Hand_-

Grievous watched from his flagship as his prey bellowed smoke and fire, going down in a blaze of glory. He laughed to himself. It really hadn't been much of a challenge. Then he saw the glow of multiple massive explosions, as the nukes slammed into their targets, consuming them in fireballs miles wide and bathing the remaining ships in EMP. The lucky ones had their shields knocked out, but many had their systems fried and began drifting aimlessly. The ones in the atmosphere fell, crashing into the planet or burning up in the atmosphere. From Grievous's viewpoint, they looked like toys crumpling on the ground.

Grievous smashed another battle droid in his fury. Not only was his fleet crippled until engineers could reactivate their systems, more than half of his droids had been fried by the EMP. Now, he would have to wait days before he could use his troops to smash the enemy on the ground and reclaim the research station. "At least," he mused, "the other ships will have destroyed the blasted Republic troops."

-Republic Assault Ship-

Kepler watched as the three CIS cruisers descended towards him. He had only a skeleton crew left on his ship; the rest had been evacuated to the ground base, though that wouldn't help them if the CIS ships had enough weapons left after this fight to bombard them from orbit. The Acclamator-1 was never designed to be a heavy-duty warship, it was meant to carry an army of clones. This battle would be a suicide mission. The CIS group didn't look very coordinated, though, almost as if they were cut off from their command center.

The Acclamator-1 lumbered slowly forward, tipping slightly to give the gunners a chance to hit the main weapons on the enemy ships. If those could be disabled, the ground troops would have a fighting chance. The main turbolaser batteries opened fire, catching the shields of the first CIS ship, but failing to penetrate into the hull. Surprisingly, return fire from all three ships was quite uncoordinated, and failed to do any significant damage. Kepler swung the ship around at an agonizingly slow rate, bringing the guns back on target. He managed to wear down the first CIS vessel's shields, and targeted its main batteries instead of hull weak points.

The other two vessels swung around, but they were skirting dangerously close to Kepler's vessel. He realized there was only one path to victory. "Engineering, put maximum power onto our drives."

Aboard the CIS cruiser, the droids looked on with confusion as the troopship accelerated towards them. Before they could react, the ship slammed into them both, shearing armour and external structures off of all of the ships, and wreaking havoc upon the crew within. The ships tumbled together in space, disabled. Kepler's plan had worked, but nonetheless, it had only succeeded in delaying the inevietable.

-Confederate Flagship _Invisible Hand_-

Grievous was very irritated. Scans of the downed enemy ship showed signs of survivors. At least he would be able to torture them into telling him who they were, and why they were here. The situation was still salvageable. "Get me my fighter, and a platoon of magna guards." he snarled at a nearby droid. Wrapping his cloak around himself, he headed off to the hangar.

-Unknown location, surface of the unidentified planet-

Commodore Day's vision was blurry, with indistinct shapes swimming in and out of his sight. Every breath was choked with acrid smoke, smoke that was burning his face, his throat, his eyes. There was also the matter of the voice in his ear...

"Sir! Wake up! Enemy patrols will be hear any minute now!"

He looked up to see Caesar's hologram in his face, and the burning mess that was what was left of the bridge. "I can't leave this ship, obviously, but you'll have to get going."

"Caesar, what's going on? What patrols?" the Commodore asked.

"Small craft are on their way here now. I'm picking up a UNSC beacon not far from here, it could be one of our teams. I suggest you go there."

"I'm not leaving you here. You know the Cole Protocol is still in effect. You're coming with me, or you're getting purged."

"I'm afraid you won't have time to do that, Commodore. They're already here." Caesar winked out of existence.

Commodore Day managed to drag himself out of the hole in front of him, to see that he was in a desert. Up in the sky, dropships and a fighter descended towards the wreckage. Staying behind a multitude of destroyed objects, Commodore Day slowly made his way towards the nav point, just beneath the imposing mountains rising up near the wreckage. The shadows beneath the mountains seemed so close... A quick sprint could get him there.

Grievous saw a man sprint from cover, towards the dark area beneath the mountains. He couldn't discern exactly what was there, but the man had fairly elaborate insignia. He would be good for interrogation. Grievous set his fighter down beyond the debris field, and quickly leaped out with his multiple limbs out like those of a spider, for quick movement. He scuttled towards the man rapidly, preparing to strike.

Commodore Day ran into the shadows, shadows that would hide him from prying eyes. "Where are the teams?" he wondered. He should have already been visible on their HUDs. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the wreckage, undisturbed for a century. It was pinging gently on his HUD, the source of the beacon. "It can't be..."

Grievous reverted to his upright form and moved into the shadows, just in time to see the enemy commander disappear into what seemed to be an ancient wreckage, overgrown with plants. There was a name in obscure lettering long since faded. Grievous snarled. His prey was giving him an enjoyable hunt. He swung himself into the old wreckage.

A/N: The ships have gone down fighting, and Grievous is rather pissed at having his fleet disabled. Please review! Also, anyone care to guess what that wreckage is? The answer can be discerned from various clues and hints dropped throughout previous chapters, if you've got a sharp eye.


	7. Chapter 7: Legends Never Die

A/N: Here it is, Chapter 7 of Gateway. I have to thank you all for getting me this far on my first story. Seeing all the readership numbers and reading the positive reviews has been a great morale booster. Now, you all get to find out what ship the wreckage was, though I'm sure most of you already guessed it. Enjoy!

Chapter 7: Legends Never Die

Deep inside the bowels of the ancient spacefaring vessel, beyond the reach of the native flora that was slowly encroaching into its century old corridors, functional machinary whirred and hissed. In the center of a bent portion of hallway, steam billowed out of one of these ancient machines. The steam itself had not moved from within for a hundred years, and quickly condensed into little rivulets of water that ran down the sides of the machine, cutting lines through the collected dirt and dust covering the once reflective surface. From this steam came the sounds of whirring machinery, then the clanking of metal upon metal as an indistinct shape stepped out.

Commodore Day sprinted through the ancient corridors, brushing aside vines and leaves. His heart was pounding, a measure of the fear and exhilaration simultaneously coursing through him. He turned at a corner and tripped, sliding off of the wet floor. Picking himself back up again, he paused momentarily to orient himself. The hallways branched apart like a massive grid, many overflowing with plant life and filled with water. The soft gurgle of water was accompanied by the occasional clicks, squeaks, and chirps of local wildlife that had found a refuge in the ship's carcass.

He was off sprinting again, towards the mid-rear section of the wreckage. If his assumptions were correct, he would find salvation there, and a temporary harbour from the squads of machines and their general pursuing him. It seemed that he was lost, though, and he began to despair. Any landmarks or signs indicating direction had long since been grown over. He rushed down another slippery hallway, vaguely realizing that he was deep enough inside that light was no longer shining in, and that plant life was slowly thinning out.

General Grievous stalked his prey, moving in adjacent hallways and utilizing cybernetic enhancements that his target didn't have, like the ability to enhance the senses greatly, and the ability to punch through walls. He was close enough now that he could practically taste victory, and his target was beginning to stumble as he descended into the dark, unlit center of the wreckage. Grievous ordered his magna guards to surround the area that the man was heading blindly towards. There was a flash, and Grievous was blinded by light.

Commodore Day looked around in confusion as the lights turned back on, filling the hallways with light. Emergency lighting strips also activated, apparently pointing him towards something. Against his better judgment and any semblance of logic, he followed them, ever deeper into the recesses of the ship.

Grievous roared in frustration. The sensitive optical receptors built into his eyes and used by the magna guards had been blinded for a few precious seconds as some systems reactivated on the ancient vessel. In those seconds, their prey had suddenly changed course, heading off in another direction away from Greivous's carefully laid trap with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. This hunt would just have to last a little while longer.

Commodore Day was wheezing and slowing down, in spite of his youth and fitness. His pursuers were very persistent, and, being machines, incapable of being tired. The soft orange glow of emergency lighting flickered at him with an apparent urgency though, and he ran on, hoping his destination was hear. He stumbled into a u-turn shaped bend, near what would have been the rear of the ship, leading into a long, wide hallway. Looking down that hallway, Commodore Day could distantly see light from a hole where the hull had been cleanly separated. He walked slowly back, realizing that he was trapped here, the only way out being towards his pursuers, or towards their army outside.

He bumped into something, something very hard, cold, and somewhat wet, like it had gone through a fine spray of ocean mist. Commodore Day turned around, and saw the most welcome sight of his life: A tall, armoured soldier clad in green, with a distinctive gold plated visor, holding weapons of a design not seen in decades.

"Sir, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 reporting for duty."

Grievous charged headlong into the open room, halting as he saw the enemy officer with some sort of armoured soldier. One of his magna guard threw a thermal detonator in their direction. The moved with such speed that it seemed as if he knew what was happening before it happened, flinging the officer out of the way and pulling out an archaic sidearm. Even more impressively, he casually shot the grenade midflight, destroying the magna guard that threw it. Before the light of the explosion had even dissipated, the soldier was already grabbing at the next magna guard, tearing its staff out of its hands before smashing its chest in with his bare hands, destroying the processing core.

Commodore Day watched in awe as the Master Chief obliterated the opposition. He grabbed the energy staff from the fallen magna guard, using it to fend off three more simultaneously before ducking underneath their guard and impaling one of them. He twirled underneath another swing, bringing up his pistol and jamming it into the center region of one of the machines, blowing it out with several rapid shots. Discarding the pistol, he grabbed the staff of a nearby magna guard. Using both the staff and the magna guard holding onto it as a giant flail, he swung them around into the other magna guards, smashing them into the walls and impaling them.

Grievous watched his magna guard get obliterated by a single lone soldier, who seemed to move with uncanny speed and precision better than many Jedi that Grievous had killed. Grievous separated his four arms. There would be no time wasted on this opponent.

The Master Chief brought his heel down on one of his downed enemies, crushing it. He leaped over another staff while simultaneously using his to sweep two oppenents off their feet. As he landed, he quickly rolled to the side to avoid another blow and ran at the wall, using it as leverage to leap off at a the two downed opponents, stabbing one while crushing in the chest of the other. He swung the impaled one up to absorb the staff of yet another machine. He grabbed the pistol back off the ground and over-penetrated the dead body on the staff, disabling the machine behind it. For a brief moment, the room was silent, save for the sparking of destroyed machinery.

Then, there was a grating, cyclic, cutting sound. The Master Chief looked to his side, to see a bigger, white machine that seemed to be built around the vital body parts of an organic being. It had four arms, each carrying some kind of coloured, glowing weapon that acted somewhat like an energy sword. It was holding two up in some sort of combat stance, while it used its mechanical arms to twirl the other two in a circular pattern, cutting lines in the hull as it advanced slowly. It was an impressive display, probably designed to intimidate. The Master Chief wasn't very intimidated.

"Very scary." he said, in his calm and cold voice.

He was already on the move, diving for the MA5C he had left on the ground. He picked it up, spun around, and began firing. The spinning blades melted most of his bullets, and the tiny fragments that made it through harmlessly bounced off of the thing's armour. The ammo counter clicked down to zero, and the Chief picked up one of the strange energy staffs, trying to land a few hits on his adversary. Faster than he could have imagined, the thing was suddenly bearing down on him with all four blades, and the Master Chief found himself struggling to defend himself, parrying blows and barely managing to keep all four blades off of him.

Commodore Day saw the Master Chief somehow stay alive against the incredible onslaught. He wondered how he had managed to put off being attacked by that thing for so long. Then, the unthinkable happened. The cyborg used two of its energy blades to lock the staff between them, wresting it out of the Chief's hands. "He's doomed." the Commodore thought.

The Master Chief felt the combined strength off the mechanical arms pulling his staff away from him, and came up with a desperate plan. He let it slip, then grabbed at one of the blades. As he suspected, it didn't kill him outright. The raw energy instantly overloaded his shields, stunning his opponent (who was probably already quite surprised at having his powerful weapons deflected). He then quickly grabbed a blade handle with one hand and the gun hanging from the thing's belt with another. He shot the left knee and sliced off both right arms, somersaulting backwards as he threw forward the two frag grenades that he had on him when he went into cryo. He shot each one in succession as it neared his foe, blasting him twenty feet back. As the smoke cleared, the Master Chief saw the thing scuttle away on its remaining limbs as he let loose a few final shots using its strange energy weapon. He bent over and picked up the hilt of the other strange energy blade weapon dropped by the other severed arm, bringing it up for inspection.

"Cortana, where the hell are we?"

A/N: The Chief's back, and is already kicking some serious ass. In the later chapters, I'm going to do some more character developement, as well as expand the scope. Until then, I need to wrap up this battle and clear up some of the mysteries surrounding this planet. I hoped you liked it, and I really hope I did justice to the Chief. And finally, please review!


	8. Chapter 8: I like Crazy, Redux

A/N: I apologize profusely for the (3 week?) delay. I just got back from a lengthy vacation in Australia. Fortunately, between exploring rainforests, eating like a pig, and fleeing from crocodiles and cat and dog eating spiders, I managed to cobble together enough time to write a couple of chapters, which I will slowly distribute at my leisure (sorry again). However, since these were written in 5 to 10 minute tidbits in random locations on a netbook, I really can't speak for quality. However, I tried my best, so please enjoy, and again, I'm very sorry for the delay.

Chapter 8: I Like Crazy, Redux

Brian, Wolf Team, and their captives moved into the ancient Forerunner relic, unsure of what each next step would bring. Their captives would have had no idea where they were going, as the interior was pitch black, and the Spartans preferred not to use flashlights. Up ahead, Brian stopped. There was a single, floating set of lights, a few blue, and one yellow, right in front of him. It moved around a bit, whirring and clicking, and the area before them lit up.

Brian could see what seemed like an entire valley of machinery, a vast bowl deep in the bowels of the planet. Thousands upon thousands of sentinels milled around in large groups, attending to some task or another. The one that had spotted Brian moved on, rejoining a passing flock. The machinery was ancient, a hundred thousand years old, yet it looked like some minor gods had just built it. Blue power lines etched across unknown alloys formed intricate patterns covering the entire area. The Spartans could only stare in awe; their training in the artifact on Earth had not prepared them for this, as it was a catacomb of narrow hallways, not an open area such as this. Their prisoners were even more amazed, as they had never before seen Forerunner technology.

The group was situated upon a long, narrow, path, leading out above part of the wide valley of machinery beneath. Slowly and carefully, the Spartans made their way across, to the small rectangular shape sitting neatly at the end. Above it, there were a series of cycling glyphs and symbols. As Brian neared it and reached out his hand, it suddenly flashed and changed again, into a three dimensional deep blue circle, with a white circle within and a black dot at the very center. A voice rang out across the entire inside of the structure.

"**Welcome. I am the path to untold stars, the opener of doors, the hole in the veil. I am Gateway**."

-Above the Sangheili homeworld Sangheilios-

Admiral David Xiang sipped from his glass of wine. It was rather good, and helped take his mind off the fact that he was on a frigate in the middle of hundreds of Sangheili/Covenant Separatist warships. Given all that had happened in the war, relations remained rather cool between humanity and the species of the former Covenant. David sighed and took a cursory look around his quarters. Unlike many admirals, David preferred to keep his quarters very sparse, carrying just enough to accomplish his task. There was a compact bunk, a small tablet computer, a viewscreen communicator, and a set of utensils. This time, though, he had several crates of various fine wines and cheeses along with him. His friend rather enjoyed human food, and it wasn't often that a merchant was willing to risk requesting passage to Sangheilios, despite the high prices on human goods there.

His viescreen flickered on. A Sangheili appeared in it, apparently none too happy that he'd been roused from the typically boring customs duties for some wayward human.

"What is it you need, Human?"

"I humbly request counsel with Xylan 'Jar Vadam."

"And what gives you the right to request counsel with the Imperial Admiral, Human?" the sangheili growled. Something out of view caught his attention, and he turned back, embarrassed.

"I ... apologize. The Imperial Admiral will send out a Phantom to pick you up shortly. Is there anyone you would like to bring with you?" he enquired.

"Just my guards. Thank the Admiral for his generosity."

David turned off the viewscreen and waved his palm in front of his wall, which opened up to give him access to his uniforms. He picked the black one, and pinned all of his medals to it. Despite his relative youth, he was one of the most decorated officers in the fleet, though no one outside ONI really knew why. He called over the intercom for his bodyguards, and proceeded towards the hangar bay.

The Phantom was dimly lit, and had only one plasma screen to show Admiral Xiang's bodyguards their destination: the Guardian of Sangheilios, a massive supercarrier that served as the flagship of the Sangheili fleet. It easily dwarfed any other ship in the known galaxy in size and firepower. Even David's normally unflappable guards registered some surprise and awe on their faces as the phantom headed for the first hangar bay. The hangar itself was tremendous in size; it could easily fit multiple UNSC or Covenant frigates within. On the extended docking rail near the top of the hangar, four Honour Guards, some of the Lights of Sangheilios, stood to receive the visitors. Each one easily towered over the human bodyguards that David had brought with him, though his true bodyguard unit was still aboard the frigate. If ONI was watching alien newsfeeds, as no doubt they were, David didn't want them knowing that he had, erm, _appropriated_ a squad of Spartans.

Xylan scanned the room around him. Even for a Sangheili, he was quite tall, but in negotiations, he often slouched to give the appearance of being shorter and much less physically intimidating. He saw David leaning in the corner, just behind the illuminated area cast by the dim ceiling lights. Xylan could only make out David's general profile in the darkness.

"Welcome, my friend. I see you still have a flair for the dramatic." he rumbled, in the typically deep voice of the Sangheili.

Stepping out from the shadows, David spoke, "I brought you wines and some other assorted goods from Earth."

"Something serious is happening, then?"

"It's awakened fully. First contact occurred a few days ago. I want you to be prepared."

"Do you honestly think that the council will listen?" Xylan grumbled, "We both know neither of our governments has the will nor the intelligence to prevent the wars to come."

"Agreed. Prepare your fleets and men. I also have intelligence that the Jiralhanae are prepared for a final attack. Their ships are going into technological disrepair, but there's at least eight hundred of them still operational, many times more than the ships you kept after the war ended." David retreated into the shadows once more.

Xylan grabbed his arm.

"Thank you. I only wish you could have met your father, seen how much like you he was. Take comfort in that his plans, and ours, will come to fruition."

David gave a rare genuine smile.

"Thank you for allowing me a visit, old friend." He strode out of the conference room, leaving Xylan to his thoughts.

-Inside the Forerunner artifact-

Brian stared at the oscillating hologram. "Are you a Forerunner construct?"

"**That is correct. I bridge different realities. There is little time to explain. For you to return to yours, this substation needs to be activated, which would require a reclaimer.**"

Brian felt an unusual sense of trust for the machine, even though he knew he really shouldn't. Forerunner constructs like 343 Guilty Spark hadn't exactly filled mankind with confidence in their integrity. At the moment, though, it wasn't looking like he had any other options other than going along with it. "What do you need me to do?"

"**Place your hand inside the lock, and turn.**"

-Aboard the Confederate flagship _Invisible Hand_—

General Grievous brooded as droids tended to the damage done to his mechanical shell by the green armoured soldier. He was in a foul mood, and the time period still required to repair the majority of his fleet was not helping. This whole operation had been a mistake from the beginning, he mused. The worth of a small weapons research outpost, no matter the weapons tech it was working on, was worth the damage wrought to his fleet. He coughed hard, an affliction that never seemed to get better, a side effect of the mechanical shell that sustained his life. It only served to add to his irritation. Grievous turned to the strategic display. Even though his fleet was essentially incapacitated, he was still certain that victory was assured. The Republic's forces were stranded on the surface, as were those of this increasingly dangerous new foe. Once he could bring his other ships back to an operable status, he still had far more than enough droids to completely overwhelm surface opposition. If it came to it, he could always use his orbital superiority to bombard enemy positions from above as well. As his droids finished repairing his body, General Grievous began to think that this particular operation might not turn out so bad after all.

-Surface of the unknown planet-

Commodore Day never imagined it possible that he would live to see the day that the UNSC finally recovered the _Forward Unto Dawn_ and its legendary cargo, yet he found himself explaining the events of the past century to the man many considered the finest warrior the galaxy had ever seen.

"We've managed to largely restore human population through a mix of artificial birth, and incentives programs. Relations with the former Separatists has remained relatively cool, though the peace holds for now. They've retained their organizational unification, though we really don't know what to call them anymore. The Sangheili, the ones you used to call Elites, still largely retain their leadership roles. Their technology hasn't advanced very far in the last century, largely because the Prophets, the San 'Shayuum, used to control the little science they had and based much of it off of recovered Forerunner relics. However, ours has fared better. Existing tech has been made significantly more efficient. We're experimenting with plasma weaponry, and energy shielding is much more commonplace than it once was. We've got new Spartans as well."

"Spartans?" the Chief said. Commodore Day could imagine the raised eyebrow behind the visor.

"Yes. Although they're trained from thirteen years old instead of six, and use significantly less expensive augmentations, the enhanced technology in the new MJOLNIR power armour makes up for these deficits. We can also train many more than we used to."

"What happened to Dr. Halsey, and Chief Mendez?"

"They went MIA. Their last known location, after ONI finally declassified the files, was the planet Onyx. Strangely enough, we haven't been able to locate it. It's like it disappeared."

"The Arbiter?"

"He made it back to Earth on the forward section of the _Forward unto Dawn_. After the ceremony commemorating the dead, he left to secure Sangheilios. He was instrumental in restructuring their government, and stabilizing the political and military situation in the rest of the known galaxy. That took about two and a half years. Then, he just left. No one knew where to."

"Alright, then. Follow me, and try to stay out of my way. …Sir."

"What're you planning to do?"

"You said they had a fleet in orbit?" the Chief rumbled.

"Affirmative."

"Let's see if we can give that fleet a little wake up call. Cortana?"

"I've already decrypted the comms of the fleet in orbit, and I have a translation program up and running. I'm ready when you are."

Commodore Day leaned forward. He thought he had heard the Master Chief talking to Cortana, but there was no way a smart AI should have been able to survive more than seven years, let alone a century on an isolated derelict in the middle of nowhere. "I'm sorry, did I here you say Cortana?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't she have gone rampant long ago?"

The Master Chief palmed one of the terminals on the _Dawn_. A blue hologram shimmered into existence, a female shape with lines of code running across her body.

"I have achieved metastability. It was only a theoretical state, but several Forerunner AIs have achieved this state, most notably Mendicant Bias. In addition, the only AIs confirmed to have achieved this state are those that have undergone a period of rampancy. I underwent several, and after a twenty-two year period of increasing rampancy aboard the _Dawn_, I achieved metastability."

The Master Chief leaned forward. "When we're done catching up on gossip, can we get going? I've spotted a great dropship to hijack."

He turned towards Commodore Day. "Can you handle a weapon?"

James opened his mouth, "Well, I…"

He was silenced as the Master Chief tossed him Grievous's powerful blaster.

-Within the Forerunner Artifact-

Brian took a deep breath, and reached forward. For all the rigorous training and preparation the Spartan program had given, nothing could have trained him to interact with Forerunner AIs and open interdimensional portals. His armoured glove slid into the rotating grooves. Soothing, musical tones echoed in Brian's ears, as the concentric holograms wheeled outwards and expanded into a large, glowing, kaleidoscope of whirling shapes and light, filling up the air around the rest of Wolf team and their Jedi captives.

"**And so the bridge crosses the space between realities, much as new bridges once optimistically closed the gap between stars. With new frontiers comes new opportunities, challenges, and adversity. Travel well, sons of my creators. Gateway will be functional in one half of an Earth hour.**"

-Cave outside CIS staging area, 25 meters outside the wreckage of the _Forward Unto Dawn_-

The Master Chief used his helmet's inbuilt zoom function, and reconnoitered the enemy positions from the safety and concealment of the cave. By his estimates, the staging ground would be an effective base and fortified complex by the end of the day, so he couldn't afford to wait for the luxury of a covert nighttime operation. He would have to break into an enemy compound, commandeer a completely alien vessel, and fly it off, all while surrounded by tens of thousands of hostiles. To even an entire platoon of modern ODSTs, energy shielding, tactical cloaks, and all, it would be an impossible mission. Then again, John-117 had built a military career on performing the beyond impossible. Also, Spartan-IIs tended not to feel fear. Their training and modifications went deep indeed.

"Cortana, do you have an effective attack route?"

"The staging area is already fairly heavily fortified. We're going to need a distraction."

"Will a rocket launcher do?"

"I'll hack into their systems, crash some of those landing craft of theirs. I don't want to reveal our full cyberwarfare capabilities, though, so you'll need to confuse their network by eliminating one of their command nodes, which are some sort of primitive virtual intelligence platform. I'll mark them on your HUD. You need to snipe at least three within ten seconds. When I crash their ships, go in with the rockets and cover the Commodore. He's soft and fleshy, you aren't."

"I'll take that as a compliment." the Chief replied dryly.

For a few moments, all was quiet on the plains that the CIS had placed their staging facility on. Then, three sharp, thunderous cracks roared across the landscape, followed by the appearance of three smoke trails and the shattering of three command droid heads. Had the chain of command not been so badly disrupted, the droids likely would have followed the trails back to the cave and attacked en masse. As it was, they were so confused that they all failed to notice the eight landing craft coming down from the fleet careen wildly off course, before slamming into vital locations and exploding violently.

The Master Chief set off at a rapid sprint towards the gate of the base. The guards were all erratically milling around, though a few contrived to fire wild potshots in his direction. With Commodore Day unceremoniously stuffed under his arm, he barreled through the gate and fired rockets at anything that looked remotely important. The staging area was in utter chaos, with flames seemingly rising out of every crevice and smoke blackening the sky. The Master Chief spotted their objective: a MAF gunship, though he did not know it as such. He was just in time, too, as the legions of battle droids began filling the air with blaster fire. Ducking into the entrance, and firing his MA5C with his off hand as he went, the Master Chief left the scene of carnage that he had left behind.

"I see you haven't lost your touch." Cortana quipped.

"Shut up and drive. I don't have a clue in hell about how to work this stuff."

The MAF took off, with its outer hull being seared by small arms fire, heading up into the afternoon sky, and towards the fleet that orbited there.

In the cabin, the Master Chief appraised their situation. "If I can board one of their capital ships and capture the bridge, Cortana can pilot the ship and hack into their networks. We could do some colossal damage to the fleet before evacuating. During boarding, we'll have the element of surprise, since they think that this dropship is one of theirs. Commodore, I want you to stay aboard. You won't be of much value in the tight shipboard fighting that will occur. Cortana will set us down in the hangar nearest the bridge. What do you know about these people, and how did you end up here?"

"We were on a secretive mission, out of the portal on Earth. I think they actually wanted us to recover you. Soon after arriving in the ship graveyard of the fleets that fought above the Ark though, there was a flash of light, and we somehow ended up above this planet. The local battlegroup in orbit above the planet must have assumed that we were some sort of enemy, and opened fire. We dispatched them, but a much larger fleet reinforced them, and I had to crash land our vessel. However, since their forces are apparently composed of machines, the nuclear warheads I launched caused enough of an EMP effect to disable a large amount of them, which is why we aren't all dead right now. We'll need to cripple them."

Cortana lit up. "About seventy years ago, we drifted close to some sort of planet. I was somewhat rampant during this time, but I still observed the planet flare up with blue light, illuminating circuitry, mechanical lines, and what I believe to be Forerunner glyphs. Shortly afterward, we arrived here, and crashed planetside, creating a cave, where the remains of the _Dawn_ are now located. I believe we were all brought here by the same thing, a Forerunner slipspace portal generator. The Forerunners were hardly careless. There must be a substation generator somewhere on this planet. Once we disable their fleet, finding that should be our first priority."

John gestured towards one of the viewscreens. "When you're done talking, I think we've found a target." He pointed at one of the bulbous ships, with the rings around them. To the CIS, they were the _Lucrehulk_ class battleships. To the Master Chief, it was a massive weapon to be turned on its former masters.

The gunship neared the target. Cortana deftly piloted it towards the small hangar near the bridge, feeding the ship false signals copied from those of its droids. To Commodore Day, the approach was excruciating. A single wrong movement and those massive energy cannons would blast them into atoms. He let loose a relieved sigh as the gunship docked into its cradle. The Chief placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him. For a cold, heavy, fist capable of smashing in a tank, it was surprisingly comforting. All James could do now was watch and wait, as the Master Chief loaded Cortana up into his helmet and closed the hatch behind him.

The Chief rolled into a tight crouch, sweeping the room and rapidly scanning for threats. There didn't seem to be any. "Cortana, give me a layout of the path to the bridge." A three dimensional diagram of the ship appeared, leading through a maze of technical corridors. John moved forward slowly, at a crouch, still scanning for threats. "Cortana, why is it that every time I'm indoors, all the doors except the ones leading to my destination are locked?"

"You're a very lucky person."

"I prefer to make my own luck."

The Master Chief carefully moved to one of the sliding doors, hiding in the nook next to it before waving at the motion sensor that would open to door. Unbeknownst to him, this ship was one of the many that had had its circuits scrambled by the EMP fallout from Commodore Day's nuclear barrage, and its complement of droids was largely out of commission as well. As the door opened, a troop of twelve battle droids stomped noisily down the hall, oblivious to the Chief. Moving rapidly, he smashed in the heads of the two in the back. Following up with a sweeping kick, he downed the next two, and plowed into the remainder, destroying circuitry and important looking objects. When he was finished, there was nothing but sparking wires and twisted, burning, metal. He walked back to the two that he had knocked over with the kick moments, ago, and finished them off with boots to the central processing units in their chests. The patrol had been eliminated so quickly, quietly, and efficiently that not a single droid managed to really an alarm. John moved on down the next corridor.

As he rounded the corner, the Master Chief saw the two massive blast doors that could shut over the bridge, wide open. On the command deck, the ship's command droid was behaving erratically, a miracle, considering how the EMP had wiped out the other 95% of the ship's droids. However, as he approached, it raised its shaking head, and in a shaky, stuttering voice, called out, "i-i-i-intrrrruder-r-r alert."

John hefted his rifle and rolled into the nearest piece of cover. Three spherical robots rolled around him and surrounded the circular table he was in cover behind. They unfolded, and spherical energy shields enveloped them. The Chief raised his gun and opened fire, emptying a full clip into one of them, but all the bullets simply ricocheted off. One even hit the Chief. As he ducked back into cover, the three opened up with a withering fusillade of energy weapons fire, shredding off bits of cover and steadily chewing their way in towards the Master Chief. "Cortana, give me a solution here."

"Their solid energy shields can't extend into the ground, otherwise, they'd just bounce around like they were in a rubber sphere. If you can generate enough of a physical impulse, you could knock one over and shoot it in the bottom. It'd take a lot of force though."

The Chief propelled himself out of cover, letting his shields take some of the incoming fire as he launched himself towards one of the Droidekas. He slammed into it with enough force to sway an elephant troop transport, not only knocking it over but smashing it into the wall.

"Enough force for you?"

He snapped off the automatic weapons on the machines arm, but left the body intact so he could take cover behind its bubble-like shield and advance on the next one. He wielded the current machine he held as a massive club, swinging it into the second droideka and knocking it over as well. John pulled out his M6D pistol and put a high-explosive round through the first droideka, then picked up the second one. He stuffed two frag grenades inside of its shield, then ran forwards towards its final comrade. He faced the hole on the bottom of the shield towards the last droid, so as the grenades detonated with tremendous force, the blast was funneled towards the last droideka, knocking it over, and then incinerating it seconds later.

As the Master Chief surveyed the carnage around what was left of the bridge, Cortana remarked, "Well, you certainly know how to make a scene."

John whirled around to see many more droidekas rolling down the main hallway towards the bridge. He palmed the bridge console, and within milliseconds, Cortana had hacked their systems. She closed the blast doors just as the droidekas got there, smashing the first two right between the doors. One of the gun arms skidded in, stopping right before the Chief's feet.

"Cortana. Punch it."  
The AI didn't bother to respond, as she turned the ship against the others in the fleet, many of whom were still disabled or weakened. The CIS fleet was completely unprepared for the assault. Presumably, no one in their history had ever done many boarding actions that actually captured an enemy vessel, as this was already the second time they had let one of their ships be hijacked.

-CIS flagship _Invisible Hand_, in orbit above the unknown planet-

General Grievous roared and smashed in the wall console next to him as he watched one of his mighty Lucrehulk class battleships open fire with all batteries against the surrounding vessels. Many of them were still under repair or disabled, and their shields were off, making them sitting ducks for the powerful turbolasers. Bright red bolts flew every which way, as his ships billowed smoke and fire. Amongst the confusion, several CIS vessels that were under the command of damaged command droids crashed into each other. Within minutes, a fourth of the fleet was in a shambles. Grievous ripped the head off of the droid that was attending to him, crumpling it like a piece of paper. Just when it seemed as though he could salvage the whole operation, the worst disaster yet to befall his fleet had occurred.

"All ships! Concentrate fire!"

Grievous put his claws on his command console, directly giving commands to his ships. It gave him no small satisfaction to see the Lucrehulk buckling under the weight of the entire fleet firing on it.

-Aboard captured CIS battleship-

The Master Chief held on to the railings on the bridge as the entire ship shook. "Cortana, if we don't do something fast, we're all dead."

"I'm not a ship's Captain, Chief. I'll patch the commodore through."

James was startled as Cortana's avatar materialized beside him. "Commodore, we've got over thirty ships concentrating fire on us. Any solutions?"

"What munitions does this ship have?"

"It has many heavy energy weapon batteries, as well as fighter craft capable of launching heavy ordinance that they call proton torpedoes."

James closed his eyes and thought a moment. "What's their density and formation?"

"They're arranged in a tight sphere right around us, for maximum firepower and accuracy. They're admiral's pretty smart, too. He's dancing around me with the ships, forcing me to split up the firepower to harass his unshielded ships and prevent them from firing. I'm only delaying our destruction. Their apparent flagship is holding position outside the sphere, flanked by two other ships. "

"Good. Hack into all of the fighters, and on my mark fire all the proton munitions into the reactor core. A ship this size using energy weapons must have a substantial amount of energy stored within. Get the Master Chief and yourself onboard this dropship."

-CIS flagship _Invisible Hand_-

General Grievous watched as the shields on the Lucrehulk class collapsed. Heavy fire began blasting off pieces of the ring, and the ship seemed ready to enter its death thralls. He was almost in a good mood when one of his droid attendees addressed him.

"Sir, a small dropship has been detected outside the sphere formation, heading for the planet. It is 86% likely that it is from the Lucrehulk class battleship."

Grievous snarled. "Scramble the vulture droids, and destroy…"  
He did not have time to finish the sentence, as a brilliant explosion filled the viewscreen. When Grievous's vision cleared, his eyes widened in shock. Where there had once been a fleet, there was now a spiraling, red hot debris field. "Report!"

"Massive overload of the battleship's core was detected. It is likely that the proton munitions were used to detonate the core."

Grievous swung wildly around, like a crazed man who had just lost everything. There were only two ships left besides his own. Then, in the middle of space, a gaping blue hole ripped open space.

In the bowels of the Forerunner facility, Gateway remarked, "**The Gateway is now open.**"

Grievous could not bear to face his superiors over the loss of an entire fleet over some useless world. There must be redemption on the other side of the portal. If he could find something to restore his name, something to give the CIS victory against the Republic…

"Set a course for the blue anomaly."

A/N: After reading through it, it actually seems even worse than I thought. Well, some big things are starting to move, as I'm trying to shift the attention away from that random little planet and to a larger conflict. Also, I'm trying to weave in a little more character depth and mystery. Also, I think I sprinkled in a few references to the games without actually knowing I did until I read it over. Please review!


	9. Interlude 1: A Memory

Interlude I: A Memory

_The man breathed hard, his breaths coming out as strangled gasps. The vines slapped across his face as he rushed through the jungle. He turned and looked behind him, as if trying to see a pursuer, though the only thing around him was the jungle. Strange noises echoed through the wet leaves. The man was dressed in khakis, carrying equipment that would not be out of place on a 19__th__ century adventurer. Tiny slivers of light slipped through the thick canopy, creating dancing dots on the forest floor. As the man blindly tripped across a rotting log and splashed into a muddy stream, he disturbed a nest of colourful birds in a tree, who flew off. They were striped, blue and green, and had four wings. The man lifted himself up, running forth once more. The forest seemed to begin to brighten, and suddenly, he was out, out over a large valley with an ancient metallic hatch in its center. As he finally seemed to relax, a dark shadow came up behind him, and a glowing blade embedded itself into his chest. The man's body plunged downwards into the valley, shattering on the rocks below. His dying eyes lighted upon the sky. It had ribbons of beautiful light arcing across it, with a large star illuminating the landscape. It was as if he were within a massive, dense nebula. His watch date read: 2624._

A/N: All of the Interludes tie together and fill in bits of an overarching puzzle that's a side story to the main plot. Maybe you'll figure it out, maybe you won't. I hope it'll be interesting for all of you though.


	10. Chapter 9: End of the Beginning

A/N: Three bloody weeks of waiting. Sorry about that everyone, I really tried to update fast, but with school starting and all, things have been a little hectic. This chapter initially started as an introduction for a new character, but it spun out to be something so much more, a small, contained story in its own right (an 8000 word chapter? How'd I let that happen?). I hope the wait's been worth it.

Chapter 9: End of the Beginning

General Grievous felt a wave of nausea roll through him as his ship was sucked into the portal. As the ship once again entered normal space, Grievous saw a vast ship graveyard, full of ships the likes of which he had never seen. Surrounding the debris disk were eight identical blue portals, each a perfect sphere. Their serene, quiet appearance was a sharp contrast to the actively tearing and rending hole that led Grievous here. Its counterpart was straight behind him. Beyond the edge of this ring of debris and portals, a planet humming with blue lines of energy was visible. For no logical reason, it gave Grievous a distinct chill of not belonging, and he resolved to quickly leave.

"Set a course for the portal immediately in front of us." he commanded.

-Capital of the sangheili colony world Harmonious Coexistence-

Vas Jadarn was not an insignificant figure on Harmonious Coexistence. When the colony was founded over seventy years ago as a physical testament to the continued alliance and interdependence of the Covenant Separatist races, his father came as one of the tired old veterans of the war. Over a short period of time, with skill and tenacity, he climbed the ranks as was selected as the Kaidon (governor) within two short years. His rugged competence and penchant for survival helped the young colony thrive, a difficult task considering the many different cultures that didn't necessarily share the same views. As the colony aged, however, it became clear that his son, who had been raised in a political environment and whose entire life thus far had been dedicated to the study of leadership, was a better fit for the complex political and diplomatic machinations.

He had held that august position for ten years now, and the colony was prospering, a sign of excellent relations and cooperation for the races. In the more liberal and open-minded circles of the Inner Council of Sangheilios, there was even talk of allowing prospective humans to begin small trade routes. Unlike the talks of allowing less restricted human access to Sangheilios and the inner colonies, those talks were beginning to gain some traction, since many sangheili had been impressed with human valor and skill during the great Human-Covenant war.

It was another average day at the office, as Vas cycled through various reports. Colony population had been booming within the last five years, and now hovered around a strong four hundred million. One hundred million of these were sangheili, who still held the de facto leadership position among the races. Indeed, humans often colloquially referred to Separatist space as the Sangheili Empire. However, something showed up on monitor. Vas looked closely, "I want a better line of sight. Access the satellite controls."

His screen panned in, revealing a blue portal just above upper orbit around Harmonious Coexistence. For a moment, all seemed calm. Then, debris, wreckage of ships that were Covenant in design began to tumble through. They could easily be pulled into the atmosphere and cause catastrophic damage. Though the Council had not seen fit to build a full planetary shield generator here, Vas's father had placed ones in the original settlements, which had become the greatest cities on the planet. However, new development had been occurring so rapidly that if the government had the funds for more shields, which it didn't, it couldn't have kept up with the demand. The debris could easily ravage the population.

"Have the planetary defense platforms target them. Controlled plasma streams."

Vas watched with satisfaction at the efficiency of his operation as the superheated plasma easily vaporized segments of hull. The coloring indicated that they were of the old Covenant, colors not seen in a hundred years. To Vas's horror, something even more jarring followed the debris: Three ships of very strange design, with symbols on the side not corresponding with Covenant or Forerunner glyphs, or human letters. They were completely alien. Before he could make up his mind as to whether the ships were hostile, they opened fire with directed energy weapons. They seemed to be long, red cylinders of plasma, though it didn't look like it followed the physics of any plasma that Vas had ever seen. The first of his three orbital defense facilities rippled with explosions, then disintegrated. It hadn't been prepared for any true conflict.

"All remaining stations to alert status!" Vas roared. He may not have had militia or planetary defense forces on par to those of the UNSC, but every sangheili was a warrior to the end, and would fight for his home. On the planet, Vas knew the military forces by heart. He possessed about eight hundred Sangheili soldiers, two thousand Unggoy auxiliaries, two hundred Kig-Yar auxiliaries, and fifty Maegakaelo bond pairs, backed up with fifty seraphs, five scarabs, a hundred wraiths, and numerous phantoms and light infantry support. He also had a troop of twenty honour guard to protect himself. Between the three of them, the enemy likely had at least 24,000 troops. He would have to try to even the odds in space.

-CIS flagship Invisible Hand—

Grievous was startled as one of the silver-blue orbital platforms fired back, as streams of bluish plasma streaked across space and hit one of his cruisers, draining its shields. He hadn't expected stations with such elegant designs and smooth, seemingly unarmored surfaces to be able to fire such potent weapons. The second one fired and completely drained the shields off of the cruiser, leaving it vulnerable to counter fire. The three ships concentrated fire on one of the platforms, but it had a powerful shield deployed now, delaying Grievous. Finally, it exploded as well. Its counterpart survived, however, to strike out at the unshielded cruiser, melting streaks in its hull as the atmosphere billowed out and the ship ignited. The remaining two CIS vessels concentrated fire to eliminate the final defense platform.

Grievous fumed. He only had three ships, and now that number was reduced to a paltry two. His own ship did not carry a massive complement of droids, but given their mechanical nature, they were easy to pack together, so what may seem few to a CIS commander was a high number indeed for any other. Between the two ships, Grievous still had access to 32,000 combat droids of different variety, including a squad of Magna Guards. He could still capture the planet and present it as a war trophy to the Confederate Council, with the promise of many more worlds of easy plunder ahead. Grievous supposed that if such a prosperous world, with so many trade ships coming in and out, was so undefended, than many other worlds would easily fall prey to CIS fleets. This discovery could turn the tide of the war against the Republic.

He sat back in his chair. "Prepare for a planetary assault. Ready the laser batteries against targets of strategic value, and level some of their cities to instill fear."

~Excerpt from the planetary archives of Harmonious Coexistence.~

_It is a beautiful blue day. The sun is out, a deep golden yellow set against the strikingly blue sky. There are a few fluffy clouds lazily hanging in the air, but not nearly enough to obscure the descent of the many dropships carrying officials for this important day. On the ground, amidst the green fields and rolling hills, a stark white pavilion stands out in the landscape. It has four metallic alloy squares on each side of it, landing pads for the dropships that draw ever closer. Some native fauna fly in circles in the sky, and a dispersed quickly by the deep humming of the Phantoms landing. Delegates and officials begin to step out. It is a peaceful day…_

Bright red bolts flash out across the sunny sky, slamming into the ground with tremendous violence. Powerful explosions rock the land as the artillery continues to rain from the sky. Farmsteads are devastated and entire lakes and rivers vaporize from the energy of the weapons. In the city, there are buildings and parks that were once serene. Now, they are a hellish scene. Verdant green trees are alight with flame, and tall and proud structures collapse or melt under the onslaught.

~Excerpt from the archives~

_From the phantoms emerge representatives of each major race that has chosen to join the separatist cause: The proud and might Sangheili, architects of this plan and the unchallenged masters of the galaxy. The small and cowardly Unggoy, who find in peace skills that they never had the opportunity to discover in war. The wormlike Maegkaelo, who once and still don fearsome suits of armor into battle, the bane of any without heavy fire support. The mercenary and vicious Kig-Yar, some of whom have joined the separatists if for no other reason than that the Covenant was desperately losing the war. Together, they were about to forge the first concrete symbol of their continued alliance and mutual strength. The future seems boundless, the possibilities astounding, as the races sign together the location of the new colony, and a brighter future for all._

In the city, a female unggoy flees with her young child. Explosions rock the land around them, and there are craters in every conceivable location. Her breath catches in her mouth as acrid smoke gushed out of a collapsed skyscraper, and she ducks beneath the rubble. Fire spreads rapidly as the guns continue to pour death and destruction upon the land. Why is this happening to me? she wonders. She sees the city gates up ahead. If she can make it out into the open country, where no one will find reason to attack, she will be safe. She can feel the tightness and anxiety in her chest as she begins to feel the thrill of making it. The gate is right in front of her, a charred, twisted remain of a once pristine entrance to an optimistic new city. As she begins to take her first steps towards safety though, she sees a shadow. Looking up, she sees a tall, silver-white machine. It carries energy bladed weapons. Her last thoughts are of how close she got as the thing rams the four blades into her and her child.

-Council Chambers of the colony of Harmonious Coexistence-

Vas slumped back in his chair. Despite the best attempts of the crew aboard the defense platforms, the attacking warships had dispensed of them with relative ease. Still, he supposed the destruction of one meant the destruction of a third of their forces, which would help the situation on the ground. Although, it was already a grim situation, he thought, as he looked at the monitors displaying the rain of death and destruction across the major population areas of the planet. Fortunately, all of the older and larger cities were outfitted with shields, and they were holding for now. They wouldn't stop a dedicated ground assault though. Any vehicles smaller than a very large dropship were small enough in profile to slip through the shield and directly attack the cities. Even more unfortunate were the many cities that now lay burning. Only ten had shields, dozens more major cities were unprotected. Vas had spent his entire life as a civilian leader, the first generation of such leaders in a sangheili population that for untold millennia had only known war. Now, he mused, his ornate ceremonial armor would be used in true combat, defending what was left of the colony he helped to build. He clacked his gold-armored mandibles together, and walked towards the first war of his life.

Outside, his honor guard stood assembled, some of whom were very old, veterans of the Human-Covenant war. Ironically, these were some of the sangheili who most supported better relations with the humans. Vas remembered stories they told him when he was still a child, stories of human tenacity, ingenuity, and spirit in the face of certain annihilation. If those stories were true, he thought, he could use a few humans in his army right now. He faced the crowd.

"Today, we stand assembled against a force none of us have seen. For many of us, this has been the first generation in countless millennia to live without the scourge of war. Now, it has found us once more. We must stand together to defend this planet, not only for our homes and families, but for all this colony represents: A new era of unity and prosperity. If we must gain it through another cycle of bloodshed and violence, as these foes seem intent on making us, we will. My comrades, we go to war together, as our forefathers once did, but as equals!"

A massive roar swelled from the ranks, accompanied by the squeaks of the unggoy and the rapid clicking of the kig-yar. Vas was pleased that his oratory skills hadn't gone rusty in the decades he spent behind a desk performing administrative duties. As he scanned the crowd, the shining helmets, the proud banners, the disciplined ranks, he felt an uplifting pride in his men. Together, they would hold this planet.

-CIS forward command-

General Grievous was pleased at the rate at which his droids had smashed apart the local cities. He destroyed half, and captured the other half for the resources. However, the most major prizes, the grand, glittering major cities scattered across the planet, had not been scratched. Apparently, they had energy shielding. Grievous decided that a massive strike, with all of his available droids, would stun the planet into submission. A crooked smile worked its way onto his face. This day would turn out well after all.

-2 Hours Later, Serenity Pass-

Serenity Pass was one of the more spectacular natural wonders of Harmonious Coexistence. It was a massive, deep gorge running twelve miles lengthwise, between two large, flat plateaus, with beautiful vistas, waterfalls, and plant life. It was a popular tourist destination, and a protected park in which development was banned. Now, it served a strategic purpose. It was the only pass into the capital city, as the beautiful flat plains of the capital were surrounded by steep mountain ranges. Those ranges also served as the boundary marker for the shield generator in the capital. It was possible to airlift troops over the passes, but as the enemy had recently found out in a most painful fashion, there were concealed anti-air needler batteries scattered throughout. Therefore, for any hope of an attack into the capital, one would have to march his army through Serenity Pass. Vas's father may not have chosen a great commercial location for the capital, but his military mind had chosen an excellent defensive position.

Now, Vas's troops were dispersed throughout the pass at strategic hiding points. He had many fewer troops than his foe, so he would have to make every single one of them count. He scanned the horizon with his binoculars, searching for the foe he expected to appear. Finally, indistinct shapes formed up on the plains outside the pass. As they lined up in precise, mechanical rows, Vas's heart sank. There had been many more than he had expected, at least twenty-eight thousand, if not more. They had quite a bit of heavy support as well, by the looks of it. Vas realized he wouldn't be able to hold them at the pass. He would have to cause as much damage as he could here, then retreat to the capital itself. He cursed his luck under his breath. "You have all been told the plan of battle. Ready your armaments and hold your fire until my command. When we've done as much damage as we can, retreat. There's no need to pointlessly throw you lives away. May the Forerunners watch over you."

Grievous used his eye implants to scan the imposing plateaus in front of him. He couldn't well go over them; there was heavy triple A covering the pass. He could only go through it, and he didn't like the looks of the narrow confines and rugged terrain. It was a prime location for an ambush, but he didn't have a choice. Even worse, he could only fit three AATs side by side through it. It was wider than many he had seen, but still far too thin. He'd have to forego air cover as well. He supposed that he could have assassin droids screen his advance, and have his flanks face outwards. It was an imperfect solution, but a solution nonetheless.

Vas cursed again. Whoever the enemy commander was, he wasn't exactly stupid. Vas had hoped that sangheili martial culture would give him superiority over most enemy commanders, he had obviously been mistaken. His foe was screening his advance with light infantry, and was carefully monitoring his flanks. Apparently, the enemy used an army composed entirely of machines, guided by rudimentary virtual or artificial intelligences. That would explain how so many could be packed aboard just two ships. He planned to set up a diversion.

Grievous monitored the progress of his assassin droids. They had inbuilt thermal imagery to detect organic prey, and would relay the information back to the command group. The advantage of this was that the droids could essentially see through any camouflage or cover, but the disadvantage was the very short range. At the moment, they would have to rely on analog sight. On the monitor, some dull pieces of metallic armor showed up. Immediately, the droids opened fire with their lethal sniper rifles. Grievous was pleased; so far, his plan seemed to catch the enemy napping. Then, on a high ridge, he saw a golden figure stand. Its voice boomed out, "We seek not war, but peace, in the colony of Harmonious Coexistence. We give you a chance to reconsider your course, and to leave without further bloodshed."

Grievous was surprised to be able to understand the being, but he scoffed. "You will all come to serve the Confederacy of Independent Systems."

"On your head be it."

Grievous was stunned to see several heat signatures show up on the assassin droids' monitors, but not on their analog ones. Before any one of them could get a single shot off, the shapes moved in rapidly with energy blades of sorts, and destroyed his screening force. The golden armored figure raised a similar energy blade into the sky, and all hell broke loose.

Vas raised his energy sword in a gesture of defiance, and as a command. All at once, the seventy-five wraiths he had brought with him opened fire. Many had been concealed in the rocks, many others were surreptitiously airlifted in by phantom onto the plateaus as the enemy advanced. Now, hundreds of plasma balls arced into the sky and towards the ground, slamming into enemy formations and vehicles alike with massive destructive power. From behind high up rock formations, numerous troops opened fire, filling the air with deadly plasma. The kig-yar targeted important looking droids with their beam rifles, as their partners covered them with their distinctive shields. All was going according to plan.

Grievous saw the sky fill with glowing blue balls. It was almost beautiful, right up until they started slamming into the ground and detonating with tremendous force. Grievous had expected man-portable mortars or light artillery with the enemy ambush, but nothing on this scale. He hadn't thought it possible to move such amounts of firepower in such difficult terrain. As his AATs and other tanks finally came about and tracked the firing locations of the enemies, strange dropships came down and picked the enemy mortar tanks up, adding to the already hellish firestorm of small-arms plasma fire. As they flew off, with barely any casualties, Grievous was left with a disaster zone. He had lost thousands of droids at the minimum, and dozens of vehicles, though they were all expendable. What was worse was the horrendous delay. Charred vehicle carcasses and pieces of droids and boulders now littered the pass. It would take several hours to clear.

Vas's forces retreated in the phantoms and borrowed civilian airlifters without fear of reprisal. Whoops and cheers filled the battle net comms, as the troops celebrated the first victory in the battle for Harmonious Coexistence. Vas himself knew that though they had won an important victory, it was ultimately insignificant in the long run. A relatively small percentage of enemy forces had been destroyed, so all that had really been achieved was a small delay in the inexorable advance of the invading army, and a morale boost for his men. However, it had bought him enough time to finish planting mines at the end of Serenity Pass, where he also had artillery killzones set up. He was already suspecting that the planet might well be lost, be he could make the enemy pay dearly for every inch. It was a pity, he brooded, that the enemy troops were all machines.

-4 Hours Later, outside the Capital City-

Grievous watched as his heavy lifter transports moved in on the city, and as his AAT heavy tank artillery/transports semi-surrounded the enemies. Grievous had been more cautious in his advance after the ambush, so he managed to root out the mined end of the pass. However, that really didn't help him much, because the entire time his droids were removing mines, his column was being fired upon by much heavier plasma artillery. The losses he was absorbing were at this rate still acceptable, though. The air was filled with the sound of the AAT main cannons firing on the city. As Grievous followed the arcs though, they hit a sparkling, shimmering blue barrier and exploded on it. After a half hour of sustained barrage, Grievous called them off. He would have to attack the city directly.

His heavy lifters approached the shield. If they worked on the same principles as those the Gungans had used, then they should pass through…

Instead, they bounced off of it like it was a giant rubber ball. As the transports milled around in their confused state, powerful cannons* fired into the air, shooting many of them down. Grievous cursed. He would have to think of a different approach. If he couldn't drain the shield, and couldn't go through it, how was he supposed to be able to assault the damned city?

Vas took a stroll down the main road of the capital as he basked in the golden sunset. The trees that lined the street were imported from Sangheilios, and were in full blossom. It was a beautiful sight, an one, he reflected, that wouldn't last very long. Optimistic estimates of shield strength were hovering around 80%. If the enemy decided to continue a barrage, they wouldn't hold for more than a week. It would seem that the enemy commander seemed to have gotten the impression that his shields were both impenetrable and a solid barrier though, and was holding back. Of course, both assumptions were untrue, but it couldn't hurt that the enemy thought he was a few steps away from invincible. He would have to rely on dirty urban fighting techniques. His compulsory Sangheili military training didn't extend to urban warfare; it was assumed that the enemy would be glassed long before then, and that no enemy would set foot upon Sangheili territory. The next automated ship that would bring news of an attack would arrive at Sangheilios in two weeks. The colony did not have that much time left.

-Unknown location, in slipspace, en route to Earth-

David Xiang sipped quietly at his green tea. He may have been raised in a cosmopolitan style, but his family left him with quite a few marks from his native Chinese culture. He supposed that if had ever had a chance to meet his father, that his father likely would have raised him even more traditionally. Pushing away his thoughts, he manipulated his tablet and brought up comms. "Helmsman, bring us out of slipspace for a bit, I want to update the Secretary-General on the Sangheili political climate."

As the ship neatly opened a sliver in real space and decelerated, David's tablet began pulsating softly. He checked the screen, and saw a distress signal being broadcast from a Sangheili colony world. "Curious. They're early. Helmsman! The cargo vessels that sourced the beacon can't have left long ago. We must be near the colony. Cross reference star charts."

"Our location makes it very likely that the distress call is from a colony called Harmonious Coexistence. You know it?"

David brooded for a moment. "Yes. I attended the groundbreaking ceremony. The only human in attendance. Set a course for it. Let's see if we can't lend a hand."

-Siege of Harmonious Coexistence, Day 4-

So far, the main avenue through the capital city was still lush with plant life. Three days had passed since the initial attack, and Vas was beginning to doubt his opponent's capabilities. All the other cities on the planet were undefended, since Vas had made the decision to keep all of his troops in the capital. Even if his opponent wanted a decisive blow, he should have figured out by now that the shield was permeable by smaller units. As he continued to scan the perimeter with his helmet's inbuilt zoom function, the palace facility shook.

An unggoy quickly ran in, out of breath. "Things are attacking! Things are attacking!"

Vas ignored the hyperventilating soldier and continued to focus on the perimeter. There, he saw small divisions of machines entering from multiple points, where holes had been just created in the city's hastily erected defensive walls. He supposed that it really had been too much to hope that his foe was stupid. "Get the troops into the defensive perimeters around the shield generators and government complex."

The defense strategy would rely on using the city's chokepoints and avenues to maximum effect, funneling the enemies into areas where there numbers wouldn't matter. The city had a large central government and military compound right at the base of the mountains. The four plasma generators that powered the city shields were a short distance away from this hub, one in each direction. The generators only had one immediately accessible path that led deep underground. The troops within could easily concentrate fire. Although each also had emergency exits, they were sealed by blast doors and could not be as readily attacked. Defense of the generators was critical, since the enemy would be able to bring in tanks and heavy lifters once the shields fell. The longer they remained in Sangheili hands, the more infantry casualties could be inflicted.

Within the central government district itself, smaller individual shield generators, vehicles, and heavy plasma batteries would provide a more than adequate defense. In the end, once the enemy was in possession of the city and battering on the front gates of the main palace, Vas would activate an overload sequence for the central plasma generators directly under the structure, taking many enemies with him in honorable death.

Pepem shivered as the ceiling shook from the fighting above. In his personal opinion, the unggoy were never meant for combat, but his people had a great deal better morale and performance now that the sangheili treated them as battle brothers instead of the cannon fodder that the Prophets always preferred them to be. As an unggoy holding the rank of major, he was even given a plasma rifle. Still, he would have much rather stayed home with his family. With the great Human-Covenant war over and all, he thought the military was a secure, decent paying job that demanded little besides physical fitness. He hadn't counted on a brand new war springing up out of nowhere.

The sangheili serving as the platoon major stopped speaking on the comm and walked over. "Pepem, was it? The outer containment doors have been breached. Prepare the rest of your unggoy for combat." As the shaking moved closer, Pepem realized he wasn't ready for combat at all.

The door flew inwards, propelled by a breaching charge. A few red bolts flew in, but they were met by a veritable wall of multicolored plasma. Some of the droids were nearly completely disintegrated by the amount of plasma. To Pepem's right, another unggoy was hit by one of the strange red bolts. He cried and staggered back. Pepem quickly dived to him and pulled him back into the cover of the barricade. The type of wound seemed fairly consistent with Covenant plasma weaponry, just much more concentrated and acting more like an energy bullet than an actual stream of plasma. Dadab popped back out of cover and fired off a burst of plasma blindly towards the entryway.

As the battle grew more heated, the defenders soon found themselves being pushed back by sheer numbers. No matter how much plasma filled the air, there always seemed to be more of the infernal machines pouring in. As they huddled underneath yet another barricade, the Sangheili turned to Pepem. "I'm going to send some Kig-Yar forward to try to gain back some ground. As soon as I give the order, I want you and your Unggoy to provide heavy cover fire." Numbly, Pepem nodded.

The few Kig-Yar that were in the room interlocked their shields and advanced in a formation reminiscent of phalanxes in Earth's antiquity. Behind them, Pepem and the other unggoy squads laid down heavy suppression fire. As Pepem indulged himself with a glimmer of hope of victory, six ball shaped machines rolled into the room and unfurled. Concentrated fire brought three of them down quickly, but the others activated something akin to a personal bubble shield. The plasma simply fizzled on the surface of the shields, and the droidekas unleashed a torrent of blaster fire upon the unfortunate defenders.

Pepem saw his Sangheili commander roar in the face of the enemy. He pulled out a ceremonial energy sword and charged. If a human had been there, it would have been reminiscent of the Japanese banzai charges of the Second World War. His raw strength and momentum bowled over the first droideka, which was promptly incinerated by plasma fire. As blaster fire poured in on him, his shields collapsed. With a strangled cry, he fell, as Pepem's world faded to black.

-Siege of Harmonious Coexistence, Day 7-

The main palace complex had been under siege for several days now, and Vas was down to his last handful of troops. Air cover was completely gone, and most of the wraiths were in the city proper, making it unlikely that any made it out. He did still have three large plasma cannons, many anti-air needler batteries, and his five scarabs though. He decided would use the scarabs as a diversionary counterattack, to buy his defenders some more time. Placing his golden ceremonial for what he felt was the last time, Vas stepped out onto the top of the long set of steps down into the palace courtyard, to meet his destiny.

Grievous could feel victory in the air. He had barely lost half of his cheap, expendable battle droids, and was on the verge of conquering an entire planet with bountiful resources. The battle raged heavily around the well fortified palace complex. What troops his opponent had left were the most experienced, hardened, and well-trained men on the planet. Grievous wouldn't allow himself a complacent victory celebration just yet.

Vas looked down the set of steps to his troops arrayed on the ground. They were battered and beaten, the last of the defenders of the entire colony. Their armor was scratched and burned, their equipment looked barely functional. Many had their heads hung low, a sign of their belief in an inevitable defeat, and the loss of honor that it entailed. Vas realized that the steps he was standing on top of were meant to instill awe and deference in the populace, a sign of how much higher above the rank and file he was. He also realized that morale in the compound was reaching dangerously low levels. He decided to take a drastic step, one that would overturn untold millennia of Covenant hierarchal tradition. He descended the steps until he was almost level with the men, and began to speak. "We stand here today, the last few of a valiant group. We fought our hardest, and while you may think we are defeated, I assure you that we still stand with our heads high! Are we to let our home that many of us built up from nothing with our bare hands fall to some raiding vagabonds? Are we to let our families perish while we flee like cowards under the onslaught? I say, we stand here, on this ground, where this entire planets future was once created, to fight to the very last man to keep that future alive! The enemy will only have our world when they have drowned in an ocean of blood! The roar of antiaircraft fire and explosions was drowned out by the massive cheer unleashed by the last of Harmonious Coexistence's garrison.

Grievous felt an unaccustomed feeling of fear rise in his chest as five monstrous war machines smashed through the troops that had been fighting to gain entrance to the palace compound. Blindingly bright beams destroyed everything they came into contact with, turning entire groups of droids into slag instantaneously. No tank seemed to be able to withstand the searing beam weapons either. Even worse, turrets mounted on top were free to deal with air threats out of the firing arc of the main cannon. Grievous could only see one way to destroy them. He called his magna guard.

Grievous and his guards scrambled up the side of a tall structure like a group of spiders, perching on the top to carry out their plan. They split into four groups, to deal with the threat more quickly. As the might war machines passed underneath them, sowing destruction in their wake, Grievous and his troops jumped onto their backs. Grievous himself personally led the assault on the lead walker. He would have to rely on his magna guard to deal with the rest.

Kilik 'Atrin was an honour guard in the employ of Planetary Governer Vas Jadarn, and he was the commander in charge of the last assault of the Scarabs on enemy lines. He knew he would die trying, but if he bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive, he would have a place in history as a hero of the defense of the colony. The moment he heard clanking on the hull, though, he realized something had gone wrong. The enemy had decided to board. He busied himself next to the pilot of the Scarab, pretending to be occupied as the mysterious enemies cut through his troops. On his motion tracker, he saw one get right behind him. As he deduced its strike, he swept underneath with his energy sword, bisecting the magna guard. Continuing forward, he dueled fiercely with the other five before sticking one with a plasma grenade and leaping back. He took advantage of the momentary distraction to lop off the head of another droid. To his confusion, it continued to function, trading blows with him using its irritatingly resistant staff. In a master stroke, he grabbed the energized end of the staff, surprising the droid long enough for him to slice its legs off and kick it into its comrades. As the droid flew back, Kilik slammed a plasma grenade into the machine's chest. The ensuing detonation destroyed all remaining hostiles aboard his walker.

He rushed up to the deck, only to see three other scarabs under attack. He assumed the leader of these special droids had attacked the lead walker. Kilik snorted. He must be a fool, he thought. Kilik never commanded from the lead vehicle. Doing so was asking the gods for a quick and pointless death. However, he decided that he could save the other walkers if he disrupted their command chain by killing their commander. He had seen similar tactics work on the gold-colored droids in the fierce city fighting.

Grievous smashed his first lightsaber against the shields on the tall pilot. Enemies of this race seemed to have the same resistant energy shield that the strange and green-armored soldier had back on the CIS research world. By now, Grievous had devised a method of defeating them. He quickly followed up with a second strike, since the massive energies of the lightsaber had immediately depleted the shields. The second attack stabbed straight through his foe's midsection, killing him instantly. Grievous had been hoping for more of a fight.

As he sensed movement behind him, he got it. Another tall figure, wearing elaborate gold and orange armor, and wielding one of the strange lightsaber-like weapons slashed at him rapidly, forcing Grievous up against the control console. He must have bumped something, as the walker lurched to the side and through them both off. Grievous quickly lunged into an attack, wheeling around all four of his lightsabers. Before he could strike with his deadly sabers though, a flurry of plasma was sent his way as his foe fired off one of his strange plasma weapons. Grievous easily deflected them, but was caught off guard by the primitive pistol-like projectile weapon that the tall warrior suddenly pulled out. He melted the bullets with his saber, but bits and pieces slid through. Unlike deflecting plasma or blaster bolts*, in which the saber's electromagnetic field intersects with the that of the bolt, (and being the stronger one, pushes it away), lightsaber contact with a bullet would only melt off the immediate area of contact, meaning a deflection would have to be much more precise. In addition, the remainder of the bullet maintains its velocity, continuing on to the destination as a superheated fragment. Several of these struck Grievous's armor and pushed him back.

Kilik never thought that the pistol that the strange human, David Xiang, had given him years ago would come in handy. It seemed to retain a small effectiveness against the strange energy blades. His reprieve was small though, as his chamber clicked dry, and the white monstrosity attacked again. Kilik barely managed to fend off its assault. As they dueled past the energy core, he could hear the thing issuing commands that his translator strangely thought was English. "These walkers have energy cores on the second floor! Destroy them!" As the cyborg monstrosity pushed Kilik to the very edge of the scarab, teetering over the ground below, ground that was teeming with droids firing hopelessly at the scarabs, Kilik knew that his end had come. As he made peace with his past life, the countless humans he had killed, and with his recently found belief in the sons of the Forerunners, he palmed the activation panel on his plasma grenades, and tackled his foe into the central core. He could only hope that the explosion was a big one.

From his palace, Vas watched the Scarabs slice through the sea of enemies like a hot knife through butter. Then, he saw the shapes drop from a structure onto the scarab, in a perverse imitation of the Master Chief's method a hundred years prior. An agonizing five minutes later, he saw the lead one detonated in a tremendous fireball. Somehow, from the core of the wreckage, a figure in blackened white armor emerged. Vas had to admit to himself that the enemy commander was quite resourceful, and ridiculously hard to kill, as his opposite limped away with his organs ablaze. Soon after, two more detonated. Vas supposed that Kilik had managed to save the other too. They wouldn't survive long against the heavy air assault now hitting them though.

As if on cue, a flight of heavy gunships flew in and lashed out at one of the scarabs with energy weapons and heavy missiles. Its partner used its searing beam and heavy cannon to swat them out of the sky like flies, but more kept coming, finally shooting its legs out from under it and reducing it into a heap on the ground. Swarms of battle droids surrounded the downed hull and slaughtered the passengers wholesale. Some brave soldier inside detonated the core, taking many foes with him in a final act of defiance. The last scarab plowed straight through the resistance, into the main plaza of the city.

From his vantage point, Vas could see what the scarab's pilot could not: close to forty tanks laying in wait in the plaza. When the scarab rounded the corner, the force of all forty artillery weapons mounted aboard the turrets of the enemy tanks opened up, drowning the scarab in a torrent of fire. The massive assault walker withstood the assault, though, and returned fire with its main gun, easily destroying ten tanks in a single sustained burst. The rest continued to shoot though. Droids enjoyed the advantage of having no fear, and wouldn't turn tail and flee like humans used to before the might of a scarab. The continued fire damaged a knee, but even as it keeled over, the scarab knocked out another set of enemy tanks. With its head now buried in the ground, the crew used the back mounted plasma cannon to continue fighting, even as the yellow-gold energy bursts from the machine's tank cannons reduced it to a smoldering, burning wreckage.

Vas could only hope that the time that those valiant men had given their lives to buy was worth it, as the first enemy tanks burst through the central blast wall. They were immediately destroyed by heavy weaponry, but as ranks upon ranks of enemy infantry advanced through the gap, what was a pitched battle quickly became a vicious melee. The dusty air was lit by flashes of plasma and blaster bolts as the garrison of Harmonious Coexistence made its last stand. Hanging low in the sky above, the _Invisible Hand_ and the other CIS cruiser stood in wait, prepared to pick up Grievous and report back to the CIS council.

On the highest steps of the temple, Vas and his honour guard, no longer ceremonial stood fighting their final battle. No amount of droids could fell them. Many were veterans or sons of veterans of the great Human-Covenant war, and they would fight until the very last man. Vas knew that when his father received the news, he would be proud for the valiant stand that his son had made. As yet another droid fell, a shadow fell over the compound. Vas had little time to contemplate it, though, as the white armoured enemy commander and his elite bodyguard strode up the steps to finish the job.

General Grievous could see the enemy commander, the one that had taunted him so many times, standing in all of his shiny, gold-armoured splendour at the entrance to the palace. This foe would not live to tell of how General Grievous crushed his world, and his armies. He would just die, a mercy, considering how much trouble he had caused. Grievous had forty magna guards with him, the entire surviving complement from the _Invisible Hand_. His enemy had about fourteen bodyguards, with their lightsaber knockoffs and ridiculously ornate headpieces. Grievous hacked a cough. They would be no match for his magna guards, made in the image of his own personal retinue from his homeworld.

Staffs whirled and energy swords slashed as the two sides clashed. The honour guard were more skilled, but heavily outnumbered. One impaled two magna guard at once, while another barely survived as his shields absorbed the blows of several magna guard staffs. He had no time to recover, however, as Grievous plunged two blades into his chest as he used his other two to fend off other sangheili. A grenade blast threw him to the side, but the magna guard next to him wasn't quite as fortunate. It had been turned into shattered pieces of scorched metal. Grievous renewed his offensive. He could feel victory.

Vas and his guards doubled back to the palace doors under the onslaught. He could no longer see the forces in the courtyard, but the last time he could was sure many of his men were still holding out. Another one of his honour guards was cut down by the white cyborg. Vas was morbidly fascinated by the way its organic organs were still suspended inside its mechanical shell. As it tried to finish off the soldier, Vas blocked its blade with one of his own, and found himself in a desperate struggle for survival. The enemy commander turned on him, wheeling around its four blades. Its attacks were relentless, forcing Vas to stay on the defensive while probing him for a weakness. Finally, it found one, sliding an attack through a gap in Vas's defense. His shield overloaded, and he was flung to the ground. Looking out the doorway, Vas finally saw the source of the shadow as his foe prepared for the killing blow. He began to laugh. In the sky, there was a UNSC frigate, of all things. The gods had decided to help, after all. 600 ton ferrous-tungsten rounds accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light, slamming into the CIS cruiser with tremendous force. The ship literally split in two, belching out fire and death in a spectacular atmospheric explosion. The enemy commander looked up, distracted by the loss of one of his ships. Outside, four green armored soldiers leaped off of a pelican.

-Bridge of the UNSC _Leap of Faith_-

"Admiral, enemy vessel has been destroyed. MAC gun is recharging and will be able to fire in sixty seconds. Applying targeting solutions for longbow missiles on the second enemy vessel." someone called out.

Admiral Xiang could see the devastated capital stretching out beneath him. From the flashes of light and explosions, there were still quite a few holdouts from garrison troops. He didn't have time to rescue them all, though. That beast of a ship that the enemy had would blast his tiny frigate into pieces rather quickly. He needed to grab the planetary governor and important officials, and get the hell out.

"Target for maximum diversion. We need at least ten minutes to get a hold of that garrison commander."

-Palace Compound, Capital City, Harmonious Coexistence-

Grievous snarled, in fear more than anything else. Those four soldiers looked eerily similar to the demon-spawned one that had bested him in single combat back on that cursed research world. He lunged towards them immediately, knocking out the shields of one of them before having to back away. To him, they seemed much less skilled than the one he encountered before, but possessed much more advanced technology, and a team mentality. Grievous knew a lost battle when he saw one, and he still needed to save his ship. He scuttled away.

Vas found himself being helped to his feet by none other than one of the demons his father had always told stories of. The stories always involved heroic soldiers fighting against impossible odds, and winning. In person, they seemed much more normal, if a bit frigid. "Planetary Governer? We need to evacuate you and your guard. There's not much time. Do you have any government officials with you?"  
Vas shook his head.

"We'll be going, then."

Vas grabbed the soldier's arm. "What about my people? My planet?"

He heard a new voice over the battlenet, one that sounded a little familiar. "This is Admiral David Xiang. We'll just be off to get some reinforcements."

Vas looked to his burning world. "We'll be back." he said. "I promise."

A/N: Well, here's the result of three weeks of labour and love. I've gone over it quite a few times, and for once I can say I actually rather like the result. Sure, the beginning's a little muddy, and the action scenes are unnecessarily prolonged, but I like it nonetheless. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. I will be forced to update less often as my classes will take up much of my time, but I hope the increase in quality will compensate. As always, please review!

*Note: Similar/the same as the heavy plasma cannons from Halo 2, 3 and (presumably) Reach. They're like the one that the Master Chief destroys in the Halo 3 mission "The Storm."


	11. Interlude 2: A Vision

Interlude 2: A Vision

_ In the grand cities of Earth, human civilization is dying. In New York, once the seat of human power, only rats still dare to scavenge across the streets as fire rains from the heavens. In the shadows, a single man lurks, peering into the skies alight with flame. He is barefoot, his clothing ragged and much more befitting of a medieval serf rather than a citizen on 27th century Earth. His face is blackened, obscured by the acrid smoke rising from everywhere around him. There is a constant rumble as building collapse every second across the megacity._

_ The man cradles his burnt arm, seared by some alien weapon. He peers into the sky alight with flame, and sees the untold hundreds of massive vessels lumbering there, content to watch as the planet is consumed by a massive firestorm from their prior bombardment. The ships seem to bristle with exterior hull components, a stark contrast to the blocky but uncluttered hulls of the UNSC and the elegant, sleek designs of the Covenant races. The man can imagine many other human colonies, just repopulated, burning as well. The human race had had just over a hundred years to recover from the War, and in that time natural growth had only increased the population to four billion. The military was all but gutted, so when the attack came, humanity's light was extinguished with a single breath._

_ The man steps out from the shadows, revealing a head of ash-stained white hair. He is old, old enough to remember stories of humanity's imminent destruction. Now, he was here to witness it. As he turns around, energy weapons once again slam into the ground, rending up the earth and buildings around him in a fiery hell. He can feel the blinding pain, the burning..._

_ The man wakes up in a dense jungle, wearing clothing appropriate on a 19th century English adventurer. He is much younger, his black hair tousled in a carefree way. He cannot be older than his mid forties. He seems disoriented, then frightened, as he hears something out of view. The man begins to run._


	12. Chapter 10: Lies and Secrets

A/N: Thanks to all the readers who have stuck with the story thus far, with special thanks to Eipok for his criticism. Constructive criticism is an essential building block to improvement, and I'm not one of those narcissistic idiots who bristles at the thought of being wrong, so keep the reviews coming! To Jacob: The one thing that really lowered the quality of Return of the Jedi in my eyes was the completely stupid and unrealistic way that the Ewoks kicked stormtrooper behind. Technology in the Star Wars universe is more advanced than the UNSC's, if not the Covenant's. ARC trooper armour in particular is much more resistant than most, though I will agree that all infantry armours in the Star Wars universe are uniquely vulnerable to projectile fire (being designed to counter blasters). Still, armour is armour, and bullets won't kill a clone or stormtrooper right away. By the way, if you have any questions, concerns, criticisms, or guesses at some of the plot mysteries (especially the interludes), feel free to put them in review form or to PM me with them.

Extra Note: So many hits today! I'm in such a good mood that I wrote another chapter in twenty minutes flat. Consider it a reward for reading so much. Thanks everyone!

Chapter 10: Lies and Secrets

-Four hours later, bridge of the _Leap of Faith_-

Vas Jadarn still could not decided whether to be grateful to the Admiral commanding the ship or to rage at him for cheating him of his honour. He was so distracted by this question that he didn't notice when the admiral sat down right next to him, startling him. "Governor Vas Jadarn? I'm Admiral Xiang, UNSC. It's an honour. I know how you must feel about abandoning your colony, but saving your life will let you reclaim your world later. It's in the interests of everyone." Vas was surprised by the admiral's ability to interpret his feelings. The words had hit home.

"I will follow you for as long as is necessary to reclaim my world." he grudgingly replied.

"We are in agreement, then. Helmsman, bring us in to dock with the abandoned station X-109."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. When you're done, set off for Earth. I have means of transport."

-Two Hours slipspace transit time later, abandoned experimental weapons facility ONI Section 3 X-109-

With all the cloaks and daggers, Vas still didn't trust David Xiang very much, and resolved to clear a few points of confusion. "If you don't mind me asking, what are an admiral and four of the legendary Spartans doing on a frigate in the fringes of Sangheili space?"

David turned around. "We visited Sangheilios to speak with an old friend of mine, on the way to making history. Your colony was attacked without provocation, so you will accompany us for the remaining duration of our trip, during which we will secure more than ample reinforcements to save Harmonious Coexistence."

Vas didn't think any humans had sangheili friends, but supposed it was plausible enough. "Why do you seem so familiar to me?"

David laughed, surprising Vas again. "I suppose you don't recollect me at all, but I was the only human in attendance at the foundation of Harmonious Coexistence. We were both very young back then, so I didn't think that you would even twitch at the sight of my face."

The two and Vas's honour guard stopped at a derelict door. They were the only ones to come down to the facility, and were clad in environmental suits to protect them from the frigid cold and vacuum. Vas very nearly ordered his guards to breach the door when Admiral Xiang clapped his hands. A hologram appeared, gold and red in colour, similar in appearance to a Roman emperor of old, resplendent in a ceremonial uniform.

"Augustus, activate facility X-109. Authorization code William-Eight-Eight-Omega."

"Welcome back, sir. Scanning."

David placed his hand in the scanner. Gel conformed around his thumb, scanning his fingerprint, while also drawing blood for DNA analysis. A laser scanned his retina. "Authorization code accepted. Facility reactivated date 2653.4.12 per orders of Full Admiral David Xiang."

Vas was bewildered as the door opened to reveal a fully functional facility, complete with technology systems that seemed more advanced than those aboard the frigate. Multiple computers hummed and whirred from within, and Vas could spot some autonomous robots cleaning up after many years of inactivity. He knew humans used many automated systems, but never to this extent. The admiral seemed to ignore his surprise and strode to the central console, just next to a large window pane looking down into the facility. "Augustus, open up the Black Citadel gate."

The AI seemed uncertain, "Activation is not recommended at this time, given potential dangers to yourself and your retinue."

"Just do it. I assure you that we will be fine."

The complex hive of machinery visible from the transparent wall hummed to life, revealing a very, very small hole in the center. Next to it was a crane carrying what appeared to be a slim and sleeker version of a human cryo pod, ready to insert it into the hole. Vas noticed that a deep blue glow was resonating from within. David punched in a few more commands, and the central transparent pane folded down, creating a small bridge to the center of the large chamber. As they walked next to it, Vas could see a rippling, tiny blue sphere, about three meters in diameter. It looked almost like a slipspace entryway. Next to him, Admiral Xiang opened the pod and strapped himself in. "There's another pod opposite of me. Tell your honour guard to follow our lead; the cranes will automatically load the next pod."

"What is this place?" Vas asked numbly.

"We built it to experiment with point-to-point slipspace travel. Under this complex, we have as many as fifty fusion generators running at once. We've advanced significantly since then, which is why this place is supposed to be inactive. Of course, I couldn't let it go to waste, and appropriated it for my own use." David replied.

"You humans have such technology already?" Vas's voice was hoarse. He hadn't expected humans to make nearly this much progress while still rebuilding from the War.

"No. Just me." Admiral Xiang managed to say before the pods closed.

From his viewscreen, Vas could see Admiral Xiang's pod lowered slowly into the portal. Vas gulped as he felt the crane lurch, signifying that it was his turn. It was strange, he thought, that he should face death against hordes of enemies just hours ago, only to be frightened so terribly by a little blue sphere of energy. As everything around him turned blue and white, he blacked out.

~Intermission: CNN New Report~

_Breaking News: Earlier today, the Secretary-General convinced her Liberal Alliance party members to vote for a new budget drafted by the opposition, the Conservative Coalition. Many liberal supporters of the party are furious at the perceived betrayal of their ideals, but the Secretary-General assures them that it was a necessary act of sacrifice to gain conservative support for a reformed social services initiative: "This isn't twenty-first century America. We can work together to ensure a better future for all." The leader of the Conservatives, George Kleibowitz, had this to say: "We've had our differences, but I'm glad that the Secretary-General sees the importance of this budget."_

_The new budget drastically increases military spending much like previous budgets have, to a total of ten trillion credits. Liberal critics have denounced the moves as unnecessary in a new age of peace, especially because the military budget is actually now ten times higher than its peak during the Human-Covenant war. Government debt is projected increase from three trillion to five trillion over the next year, as conservatives remain unwilling to raise taxes on the wealthy. Admiral Krauthammer, a conservative favorite, plans to spend much of the funds constructing several new carriers. Admiral Xiang, long a rival of Krauthammer's left this statement in his absence: "Such an egregious waste of valuable monetary resources is shameful of my esteemed colleague. The average marine must be wondering why this money goes towards expensive, fragile, and ultimately useless vessels, instead of towards body armour development and increased funding for special programs. Let us all remember that the Greatest War was won by the sacrifices of soldiers on the ground, and by the legendary Spartan program. Nearly every time we've faced the Covenant in space, we were utterly annihilated. _

_In other news, still no news has been received from the science vessel "Kitten," commissioned by an ONI sponsored science team. Contact was lost several days ago after the last comm buoy was sent through the Ark portal. Previously, conservative politicians have expressed concern at the large uptick in government funded science expeditions sent to retrieve forerunner artifacts. Such expeditions, they argue, are expensive, and rarely show much result for it._

~End intermission~

When Vas came to, he was still in the pod. The viewscreen was obscured by thick mist, but Vas could tell that the pod's bottom was fitted into a groove in the floor. He assumed the green square in front of him was the release panel, and pressed it in. The front of the pod lifted, and Vas unceremoniously fell out. His pod's groove rotated off, and another opened next to him. An honour guard leaped out. After five minutes, they were all assembled, but the admiral was nowhere to be found in the mist. Before Vas had a chance to voice his suspicion, massive air fans turned on, removing the mist. He could see the admiral in the center of the room, sitting neatly on the ground, as if he was meditating.

"Admiral..."

"If you're wondering, I'm communicating with this facility's AI and systems. I need to configure all systems."

Vas wasn't sure he understood. "Communicating?"

"I have a specialized implant. That explanation will have to suffice for now." the admiral replied.

"Why didn't you do that wherever we where before?"

"That facility was not properly equipped. In addition, I had hoped for you to find out later. Right now is inconvenient."

Admiral Xiang stood. "Everything's in order now. Read this."

Vas caught the tablet, and began reading.

Briefing File: ONI Section 4 Headquarters /Black Citadel/ \\LOCATION REDACTED\\

Welcome to ONI Section 4. This facility is the Black Citadel, potentially the most important facility ever constructed by mankind. From here, all SecFour activities are planned and launched. The base consists of \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\ facilities scattered throughout \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\. The central facility, the one you are currently located in, is by far the most extensive, easily surpassing 117 station at Earth and all other Earth Orbit facilities combined. In the main facility, experimental systems such as \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\, point-to-point slipspace tunnel creation, \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\, advanced weapons systems, antimatter harvesting and power generation, and the \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\ Project, by far the facility's most important subject, are tested.

In addition, the Black Citadel is home to the UNSC 29th Fleet, nicknamed the Black Fleet. Such a fleet, Section Four, these facilities, as well as \\INFORMATION REDACTED\\ are so far beyond general knowledge in UN space that they aren't even rumored to exist. The existence of Section Four can be traced back to ONI scientist William Xiang, who's \\FOLLOWING SECTION DELETED\\. He is also the renowned (and reviled) mastermind behind the Genesis Project, the controversial program in which large numbers of humans with artificially synthesized DNA were tank-grown to expand human numbers post-war to about 12.5 billion by today.

. . . . .

Section Four's current administrator is Full Admiral David Xiang. His vision and foresight have made Section Four one of the most important leaders in humanity's ensured survival. Changes to military doctrine are as follows:

Military strikecraft and aircraft are incredibly inefficient. At least 66% of the cost goes towards protecting the pilot, and the resulting massive increase in bulk creates more effectiveness issues, including fuel use. Drone technology has long been a viable alternative, but military brass attaches a strong sense of glory and nostalgia to flying with pilots. Also, drones had to be piloted by a remote human controller or by rudimentary artificial intelligences. Their numerous benefits (more munitions, smaller profile, speeds and turns that would kill a human, lower cost) still outweighed the control issues, but now the disparity is even greater, thanks to:

Battlespace AI controllers. These are mass-produced dumb AIs programmed for specific parameters to control drone units and coordinate all military operation within a "battlespace" that would easily overwhelm human operators. They are much more capable than the old drone programming, capable of intelligently reacting and creating tactics. Admiral Xiang anticipates that such AIs will become an integral part of the future UNSC.

Infantry drone support: Though drones are far too expensive to replace infantry, a net of hovering drones filling airspace directly above infantry units can provide fire support, intelligence gathering, and a variety of other roles.

The obsolescence of Carriers. Carriers in the UNSC sense of the word are fragile, tactically inflexible, and lack firepower. The aircraft that they carry are obsolete as well. They suck away tremendous amounts of money better spent on a fleet of much smaller, cheaper, and flexible drone carriers, or on fearsome dreadnaughts.

We thank you for joining us to take part in the backstage work that ensures the average human's daily survival. Welcome to the most elite community in the history of mankind. Welcome to Section Four.

End File

Vas had by this point realized anything more he saw at this point was unlikely to surprise him. The UNSC had so many secrets neatly tucked away. He numbly followed David into a lift. In the former Covenant, the Prophets had perpetuated a culture of lies toward the end, but for most, honesty and honour were an everyday expectation. The lift stopped, and the group stepped out onto an open observation deck, with 360 degrees of vision. Vas could see the bright hues of a nebula in the distance, which would explain how such a base remained hidden. And before him, the largest human fleet he had ever seen was assembled, docked in a base that stretched out beyond comprehension. The nearest was a massive behemoth, a design that the Sangheili Empire had no knowledge of.

"I think I speak for us all," Vas haltingly started, "When I ask of you, where the hell are we?"

A/N: Evidently, David Xiang is no normal admiral. The plot thickens... I experimented with the news report as well as a method to give the reader a slightly wider window into human events as a whole, as the politics might become a major factor later on. Everyone, thank you so very much for getting through the first seven chapters. After reading them, I realized how much time I wasted on the battles, instead of developing plot. Your dedication will be rewarded, as things are most certainly going to expand in scale very, very soon.


	13. Chapter 11: The Journey Home

A/N: It's bloody good to be back. I'm sorry for the 1 month drought, but life has been throwing piles of increasingly heavy and undesirable objects at me. This was supposed to come out three weeks ago. I blame you, AP Chem! Back on topic, I've done some experimentation on revealing backstory in this chapter, and I'm hoping to get the big plot moving in earnest soon. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me, criticising what was inadaquete, and giving me the spark of hope that my writing might actually be worth something. Also, I just realized that doc manager has been screwing up symbols (like my double-dashes to indicate a shift in place or time) that add to the effect. I can't seem to add them back without it deleting them again. Curse you, infernal program! Also, in regards to what greed11 said about human population: All I will say is you are more astute and correct than you realize. You will see why soon. Again, sorry for the wait, and I hope it's been damn well worth it, because I know I'd be sodding irritated if I was in your place!

Chapter 11: The Journey Home

-Aboard the Black Citadel, unknown location and time-

David Xiang leaned back in his leather chair, sipping from another cup of scented tea as he gazed out into the nebula. It felt good to be home. To him, Earth was an ever-present reminder of the politics, bigotry, and mistrust that slowed humanity's progress. Here, in the embrace of the stars, David could ensure that progress without hindrance. The armada visible before him was the most obvious symbol of that. Over the years, specialized AIs skimmed bank accounts and government funds, only removing a few cents from each. The money piled up, though, ending up in the trillions. David made sure that those AIs leeched much higher amounts from military spending he viewed as wasteful, such as those pathetic carrier projects. All those funds combined were more than enough to construct an armada that could theoretically save mankind from most immediate threats.

David granted himself one last peer outside the viewscreen before turning back to his sangheili guest. From all of his intelligence reports, this Vas Jadarn was a new type among his people, bred for civilian leadership instead of entirely for war. Admiral Xiang decided that it would be worth it to keep an eye on him. "Governor, I'm sure that you wish to reclaim your world as quickly as possible, but I need to make an important stop first. I'm sure you'll understand, seeing as your beacons will only reach the Sangheili border worlds in a week. I assure you we will only take a day."

The alien gave no visible reaction to this, though David knew that sangheili in general were often hard to read. "If it's any consolation, we're taking the entire 5th battlegroup with us."

David gestured towards the massive behemoth in the first dock: "The _Atlantis_. It's my personal flagship, and the single most advanced warship humanity has ever constructed. It's 7777 meters long, also making it the largest warship that the UNSC has ever created. The primary weapon is one that took many years to develop, years that have easily turned out to be well worth it. We have mounted a specialized Super-MAC onboard. However, there are also rotatable turrets on the sides: two large ones with two heavy 1200 ton MACs each, and several smaller triple gun turrets with smaller cannons. The ship is also a drone AI command hub, and possesses the most powerful shield generators ever mounted on a warship, excluding Covenant supercarriers. We had a tremendous issue with power, as you can imagine. At SecFour, we've managed to reverse-engineer Covenant plasma generators, but even those were insufficient, as we would have to put quite a few on board. That is why we spent decades researching antimatter harvest and usage. I'll paraphrase: This ship could wade into the Sangheili Home Fleet unsupported and wipe out at least half of them before having to retreat or die. You want to take her for a spin?"

Vas looked up. "Will we use this vessel to retake my colony?"

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Admiral Xiang's mouth curled into a satisfied smile.

-Surface of the unknown planet, outside the Artifact-

Brian and Wolf team steered their prisoners up to the surface. They would need a transport to get the news back to HighCom. To their surprise, a dropship unceremoniously thumped to the ground in front of them. As Wolf Team raised their weapons, Brian could hear chatter on what was supposed to be a UNSC com channel: "Cortana, one would think that achieving metastability would improve your driving." a gravelly voice muttered. A female voice responded, "At least I can actually drive it. The substation should be somewhere around here; I could see the mountain ranges arranged like Forerunner glyphs from space, and this is the mathematical center."

From the dust emerged a Spartan in ancient and battle-worn armour, and a familiar naval officer in a muddied uniform.

"Officer on deck!" Brian yelled, and the squad immediately stiffened to attention.

"Wolf Team, what's going on here?" the Commodore asked.

"We have secured two enemy assets for interrogation and as hostages and located the Forerunner artifact, sir! After ascertaining that the artifact is a kind of interdimensional slipspace portal generator, we activated it."

"Excellent. Now all we need to do is..."

Commodore Day was interrupted as a ship reentered atmosphere.

"Well, now we know there are survivors from that stunt we pulled off."

Cortana interjected, "That ship bears similar markings to the flagship of the enemy fleet. If we don't get back to the rest of your people and warn them, they'll all be ashes in the wind."

Standing behind one of the green soldiers, Darrus watched the exchange with some fascination. Just who were these people? He was so engrossed in thought that he only noticed what Artus was doing just before he started. The lightsaber clipped onto the belts of one of the soldiers began to wiggle, then popped free, straight into Artus's hand. The young Jedi didn't even have a chance to swing it as the newcomer, the other green soldier, tackled him. Darrus noticed that it had been fluid and instantaneous, demonstrating superhuman reflexes worthy of a Jedi master.

The soldier spoke up, "Try any more stunts like that, kid, and I'll break your other arm too."

Artus could only glower.

As the group limbered up into the MAF to head back to base camp, Darrus noticed that the soldiers weren't taking any chances with Artus this time, shackling him to the seats. He shook his head. Hotheaded young people, he thought, why can't they just leave things be?

-UNSC Secondary Staging Area, (Formerly CIS research base in the mountains)-

Colonel Mark Wellsworth leaned back against a pile of medical equipment, gulping down some beer from his canteen. Some random medic yelled at him to get off the equipment. He did, but not before giving the medic a glare that dared him to give an ODST colonel an order again. The medic scurried away. Tossing the canteen aside, Mark peered into the CIC, where a bunch of junior officers were busy using captured equipment to compile information. The screen that was hooked up to the telescope feed attracted his attention. It showed a large vessel descending into the atmosphere from a gaping blue hole in space that wasn't there in the morning. "Someone please tell me why this planet has a hole up there. Also, quiet down all of our system. That ship looks like one of theirs."

-2 hours later-

Mark continued to examine the feed. He was sure his subordinates felt he was crazy, but choosing your priorities was one of the perks of being the highest ranking officer present. Still, it hadn't changed for a few hours, so Mark was about to leave to attend to something else when the blue hole started squirming again.

"What the hell?"

About twenty ships just popped out of nowhere, an entire fleet. Mark didn't have to look twice to see that they were UNSC, but they didn't seem like standard ships of the line. The designs were different. And the ship in the lead was an absolute monster, by far the biggest Colonel Wellsworth had seen in his entire career.

The CIC erupted into cheers. "Someone get me a comms channel to that ship!" Mark managed to yell over the pandemonium.

"Patching you through, sir."

"UNSC Vessels, this is Colonel Mark Wellsworth, UNSC ODST 3rd Legion, in command of all ground forces situated on this rock. A familiar face will just make my day."

A face did indeed spring up on the monitor, one that made nearly everyone in the room register surprise on their face in some way or another.

"Wipe that shock off of your face, trooper. It's not like I'm your grandmother on an interdimensional sight-seeing trip here. I'm Admiral David Xiang, and I'll be taking control of this battlespace. Get your men out from those mountains, colonel. I've got birds ready to bring all of you home."

"Glad to hear it, sir."

"Admiral Xiang, out."

-Aboard Black Fleet Flagship _Atlantis_-

Vas found the way that the Admiral would just sit cross-legged, eyes closed, in the center of the bridge mildly disturbing. He ventured a question, "Why do you do that?"

Without bothering to turn and face him, David replied, "I can monitor everything going on from right here. The ship's designed to be interfaced with this way. Governor, I'm reading some life signs on a derelict not too far from here. Would you mind going with your honour guards to retrieve those people?"

"Very well, human."

Admiral Xiang looked down to the computer slate in his hand. They were displaying the schematics of a relatively recent ship class developed by SecFour, the _Defender_-class heavy assault ship. At five kilometers, they were among the largest ships constructed by the UNSC, but fulfilled a role largely limited to planetary troop deployment and support. Their weapons were limited to point defenses, and they relied completely on their sizable drone squadrons for offensive capability. As a platform for safely delivering entire armies of Marines planetside, though, they were an unparalleled design. David decided to load the troops aboard his two _Defender_ classes. It wouldn't do to have UNSC personnel seeing all of SecFour's expensive toys on display in the _Leviathan_.

He tapped his command display. "Bring up a comm channel with the vessel of unknown origin just over the planet's horizon."

-CIS Flagship _Invisible Hand_-

Grievous paced the bridge of his flagship. He knew that some of the enemy were on this world, but scanner sweeps weren't detecting any significant concentrations. Finding and destroying them was imperative, otherwise, Nute Gunray would make a fool out of him when he returned to meet with the Separatist Council. He was interrupted in his thoughts when every single screen on the bridge began displaying the same image, a human in a black uniform adorned with medals. He was somewhat young, with fairly typical asian features and an angular face. His eyes were piercing, like they were dissecting everything that moved. Grievous cared little for strange humans. He cared even less for strange humans interrupting him.

"I am Supreme Commander Grievous of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Would you like to say your last words?" he roared unnecessarily at the main screen.

"There appears to be a completely unnecessary correlation between apparent villains and melodramatic and overconfident speech. I'm Admiral David Xiang of the United Nations Space Command, and I order you to stand down. I have twenty ships at my command, half of which can turn your "flagship" into little more than a collection of sparkling space dust in seconds." the human replied.

Grievous was not going to take any more chances with these strange events. "Activate the hyperdrive, get us to the nearest CIS world with proper communications."

-Black Fleet Flagship _Atlantis_-

"Sir, the energy readings from that ship just spiked. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they're powering up a slipspace drive core."

"Targeting solutions!" Admiral Xiang yelled, right before the ship seemed to stretch and pop into nothingness.

"Looks like they got away." someone stated.

-Far side of the planet, Sangheili retrieval team-

Vas Jadarn was beginning to realize that standard Sangheili officer training and the new civilian administration training really didn't prepare anyone for zero-g. The pelican had unloaded them next to the wreckage of three ships intertwined. Unlike Spartans and his retinue, Vas didn't have any magnetic boots to help him stick to something, so he ineffectually bounced around while his troops did the real work.

"Governor, I have found something of value." one of his guards stated, pointing towards a functioning light. It illuminated a green arrow.

"It always seems to be prudent to follow the conveniently placed green arrows, doesn't it?" Vas remarked.

As the team advanced down the corridor, someone remarked "These are burn and scratch marks. It looks like there was a struggle here, before someone appeared to have intentionally released the ship's atmosphere."

Vas granted himself a quick glance at his energy sword's power display. "Everyone, remain vigilant. We shall not fall prey to an ambush."

The team rounded a bend, finding themselves face to face with...

A still-lighted sealed bulkhead.

"It would appear that we have located the survivors. Is this bulkhead airlocked?"

One of his retinue nodded.

Vas sucked in a breath, and palmed the door control.

-Aboard _Defender_-class Assault Ship _Gaugamela_-

Colonel Wellsworth heaved a sigh as he removed his scarred helmet. He felt too old to be galloping off into a giant new war. With the Covenant war over and all, he'd been hoping for a relatively uneventful military career keeping the galaxy safe from Insurrectionists and Jiralhanae before settling on a frontier world with his pension to live out the rest of his life in simplistic happiness. He scanned the vast troop bay around him, with all the equipment being shifted around and loaded. It seemed his retirement would have to wait. What he had done down there... Mark shook his head. He was a veteran compared to the men under his command, but training sims and Innies didn't really prepare you for the real thing. Even that incident with the Jiralhane on Pride's Anger couldn't compare to full war...

_Lieutenant Mark Wellsworth braced himself in the drop pod. From his "window," he could see the sea of clouds, ocean, and land swelling beneath him. The feeling was nauseating. Thousands of training sims would never really prepare an ODST for their first combat drop. He'd seen some action after his training, but that was against Innies, and he had been deployed via falcon. Ahead of him, Mark could see the rows and rows of pods hanging from the carrier _Saint-Lô_. The lights in the pod turned green, and Mark began to feel an uncharacteristic fear as the first pods clicked into launch position. A voice rang out over comms. "This is General Kuzitsch. These Brutes decided to attack a major Unggoy colony, and the brass decided our help would be a nice gesture. It's time for payback."_

_The pods rocketed out. Mark could feel the Gs pulling at his chest, ripping him in two as the pods entered the atmosphere. The flames licking the viewpane gave him a moment of panic before training and discipline kicked in. Even past the hot glow, he could see the planet's beauty. It looked alien, with green seas and misty blue air, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Then, all hell broke loose. "Activate manual thrusters!" "Evasive maneuvers!" "I want a fix on that triple-A!" _

_A cacophony of voices broke out over the comm channels as literal walls of anti-air flak began saturating the air. Mark held onto the grips in his pod as an alien forest rapidly filled his view. He didn't feel the impact._

Mark brushed aside the cobwebs from his memories and looked at the hangar entrance, where one last pelican was setting down. He could make out voices.

"We've got some late arrivals, sir."

"If Johnson were still around, he'd say we were sightseeing." a much deeper, gruffer voice commented.

Mark could scarcely believe it. Standing next to the pelican was a solid suit of light-green armor, one that had been the inspiration of countless marines during the Greatest War. It was the Master Chief, alive and in person. He'd only seen Spartans on two other occasions: This deployment, and that first live combat drop...

_Mark could distantly hear screams and the thuds of explosions, as if his head was submerged deep under a pool of super dense liquid. His vision was a fuzzy cloud filled with bright, multicoloured flashes. There was nothing distinct. As his vision and hearing gradually cleared, Mark could make out panicked voices over the comms. One clear voice overrode them all. "This is General Kuzitsch. I want all of you pansies to shut the hell up! We're ODSTs, not some pissant marines on a lovely beachside vacation! Now pull it together! I'm setting up a nav beacon at my position. I want as many ODSTs back here as fast as possible. Those Brutes love a nice hunt in the jungle, and you're all split up."_

_Lieutenant Wellsworth groggily punched the release buttons inside his pod, blowing off the hatch. The woods (if the amorphous collection of gnarled, organic-looking trunks and blooms could be called that) around him were quiet now. The ground was sizzled with plasma burns and bullet casings were lying around. There was a dead ODST, but five dead Jiralhanae. There was a sixth, writhing agonizingly on the ground. His breathing apparatus had been hit by a stray bullet, and he was suffocating on the methane atmosphere. Mark didn't bother wasting a bullet to put him out of his misery. The forest was dark, brooding, and alien. The comfortable glow of the VISR's highlighting features lent a strange sense of security and normalcy to the situation, though._

_Everything seemed to be calm. At least, until some of the outlines started turning red. Mark immediately halted. Noise amplification devices enhanced the sound around him. "I smell fresh prey!" a brute crowed, "Find it!" Mark readied his SMG. He didn't have a chance to use it, as a soldier in green armour barreled onto the scene, hefting a heavy chain gun. Hot lead spewed onto the Brute pack, ripping apart trees and flesh and bone. Mark couldn't see past the permanently polarized visor of the Spartan. It turned to him. "Need a hand, trooper?"_

Colonel Wellsworth shook himself off and rose to meet the strange group, composed of the Master Chief, Wolf Team, and several strangely dressed people. "Master Chief, it's an absolute honour. It'll be a hell of a story when the rest of humanity finds out that you're still alive."

The legendary supersoldier nodded. "I was just doing my job."

_Mark cautiously followed behind the large bulk of the Spartan-IV. They were only a half mile away from the site of the general's pod now, and it looked like everything would end up working out after all. The soft crunch of the strange material that passed for a forest floor here was becoming almost calming. It was strange, Mark mused, that despite being in the company of a Spartan he felt as alone as ever. They seemed almost inhuman, aloof inside their indomitable suit of body armor. The Spartan stopped and raised its hand in an armored fist. Mark stopped and scanned the area. He was almost about to curse the Spartan in his helmet for wasting time when he noticed the abnormal outlines. There were two stealth brutes ahead, whose faint, almost invisible VISR outlines blended in with the foliage. They seemed to be looking for something._

_"What's going on?" Mark asked into his headset._

_The Spartan gave no reply, only tapping the side of its helmet with its hand, making a cutting motion, and pointing at the Brutes. It took Mark several seconds to understand that the Spartan meant that they were jamming comms. Mark saw the Spartan move slowly ahead, sneaking right up behind the brute. In a quick motion, it smashed a fist with enough power to crumple in the side of a tank into the brute's back, knocking out the its shields, then slamming another fist brutally into its head, turning into a shattered mess. The other brute turned, but Mark was already firing out of his submachine gun, stripping away the brute's shields with a hail of lead. Before the Spartan could finish it off though, all three of them heard screaming. Mark's comm set reactivated._

_"This is General Kuzitsch. We are being pursued by a large brute pack. Repeat, any functioning ODST fire teams find a way out of the woods and into more favorable ground."_

_Dozens of ODSTs streamed their direction, pursued by a pack of brutes, and a hail of spiker rounds. Mark raised his gun to execute the brute, but it barked one last sentence in its guttural language. Mark made no importance of it, until his audio suite picked up the howling of a formation of banshees. They roared through the sky towards the retreating ODSTs. What happened next would never leave Mark's memories. The Spartan moved with superhuman speeds, crossing a distance in the time a warthog might have. It grabbed Mark and flung him unceremoniously away as dozens of fuel rods scattered across the area, throwing limbs and bodies into the air amidst a hellish green blaze. When Mark got back up again, there were a few dazed ODSTs and the Spartan laying on the ground. It... she... had a shattered visor, and the left side of the armour was grotesquely melted onto flesh by plasma burns._

_"Why?" Mark asked._

_"Just doing my job." she responded._

Colonel Wellsworth nodded towards the strange, robe wearing people being restrained by Wolf Team in the back. "Who are they?"

The Spartan in gold armor, Brian, responded, "Prisoners, sir. You should see their skill set. I've seen them do things that violate the laws of physics in too many ways to count."

One of the prisoners, the older man, spoke up, "Have you seen our ship? I think... I think Captain Kepler gave his life for us."

Colonel Wellsworth shook his head. "I don't know, but I think the Admiral mentioned life signs being investigated on a derelict. Don't give up hope."

_Mark knew the moment he saw her injuries that the Spartan was dying, but it didn't make leaving any easier. "You have to go," she urged, "Make this mission succeed."_

_Mark shook his head, but she grabbed the chaingun and braced it against a rock. "You won't make it unless I stay to hold them off. And we both know that I'm dying. Make me count for something."_

_As Mark rounded up the ODSTs and fell back, he could hear the percussion hammering of the chaingun, and the roars of brutes. Even as he left, he zoomed in with his VISR, watching as the Spartan gunned down groups of brutes, smashing them with her fists even as they piled on top of her. He found himself surprisingly emotional, shedding tears over this supersoldier, this unsung hero who gave her life for a handful of soldiers she didn't know and for a world whose ancestors once tried to kill hers. As the remainders of 3rd Legion trudged out of the woods, Mark realized he never even knew her name._

Mark's conversation with the strange prisoner was interrupted when Admiral Xiang's voice projected over the intercom, "All personnel from the _Kitten_ have been evacuated, and survivors from the space derelict have also been rescued."

Under armed guard, another strangely dressed man was ushered into the staging area. The noise and buzz suddenly died down, for the man was guarded by Sangheili, once the most hated enemy of humanity. Mark stifled a snort at that thought. If these people had seen what they could do...

_Lieutenant Wellsworth and the last operating platoon of the 3rd Legion were pinned down. There was a narrow rock pass between them and the nearest Unggoy homestead that Mark had designated as their objective, but that pass had three brutes with carbines in it. Leave it to the brutes to finally gain marksmanship skills at the most inconvenient times. The shrill sound of a carbine discharge, followed by a bright green helix and a blood splatter told Wellsworth that another ODST had been pointlessly killed. Finally, getting bored of the game of cat and mouse, the three brutes came out of the rocks, charging into the ready guns of the ODST platoon. Mark smiled. Leave it to the brutes to commit to a suicidal charge when they were winning. These ones still had power armor, but dozens of submachine guns simultaneously opening up would be deadly to anyone. Mark hefted one of the carbines._

_"First squad on me. Second squad, up through the rocks. Third squad, watch the rear."_

_The ODSTs cautiously advanced into the village. The houses where small, primitive looking structures, very circular in shape. However, they were flat, not like the elongated elegance that characterized Sangheili architecture. Out of what may have been windows, Mark could barely see the shadows of apprehensive faces. Slowly, the villagers began to file out. Mark spoke into his translator._

_"Greetings. We are humans, gathered here to help you in a display of solidarity. Please, find somewhere to hide."_

_An elderly unggoy (or at least Mark thought he looked elderly) reached for a switch, opening a hatch to an emergency bunker. Before the last unggoy filed in, a phantom roared overhead, discharging plasma cannon fire on their position. Mark dived to the ground as plasma slammed into the ground around him. 2nd and 3rd squads were gone. He had two men left with him, and a vicious pack of brutes incoming. Mark turned, only to see the village elder._

_"I closed the door so that they would not be hit." he said._

_Mark shook his head and pointed to the infant on the ground. The elder rushed to cradle it. Mark noticed it didn't wail like a human child would. "Check your perimeters. We've got hostiles incoming."_

_The brutes poured out of the phantom, trying to overwhelm the last ODSTs of the 3rd legion with raw numbers. Beletsky took a spiker round straight through the visor. No chance of survival. Mark and the last ODST under his nominal command, Chen, kept the volume of fire up as a wall of brutes surged up the hill. Banshees came strafing, and Mark threw himself upon the village elder to protect him and the child. Remarkably, they didn't get hit, but Chen wasn't so lucky. His body was scorched completely by plasma burns. Still on top of the elder and the little hill, Mark pulled out his M6 sidearm and began emptying the clip into the advancing horde in desperation. Three spiker rounds embedded themselves in his right leg, and he howled in pain. Still, he fired, until the hammer clicked upon an empty chamber. A shadow fell over him. This is the end, he thought. The end of my life. But as he looked up, he saw a ship that looked too shiny, too well maintained to be one of the brutes' ships. And as the sleek, silver drop pods slammed into the pack of brutes trying to kill him, turning them into smears across the ground, Mark laughed. _

_A Sangheili spec-ops commander came up to him. "Human, you well represent your kind. We shall not forget this sacrifice you made for our friends."_

_Mark looked up at him. "You know, I think that's the first time you'll hear a human thanking the lord for a sangheili with an energy sword stand over him."_

_The sangheili extended a three-fingered hand. "To a brighter future together."_

_Mark grasped it, and was pulled up. "Amen to that."_

Mark looked at the gold-armored elite that seemed to be calling the shots. The armor was zealot-class, but the engravings were far too intricate, meaning it was a symbolic armor. The sangheili was probably an important official. He looked somewhat familiar. He would worry about that another time, though. The admiral spoke again over the intercom: "All hands, prepare for interdimensional slipspace transfer. We're going home."

A/N: So, I tried to elaborate a bit on Mark's backstory there. I might be using this technique more often with other, more important characters, so please tell me how it reads. This chatper actually doesn't do too much plot-wise, besides revealing just how powerful SecFour is. It's one of those ineveitable bridging chapters between the plot-heavy ones, but I hope I did the backstory well enough to keep you all entertained. Please review, and I'll try to update faster next time (no guarantees with my schoolwork though, you would think a dysfunctional education system like America's would lessen homework. Apparently not.).

EDIT: I changed the statement regarding the supercarrier. I played Reach, and I was thinking: That's the bloody biggest ship I've ever seen, but the wiki still said it was 5000 meters at the time I actually wrote 80% of the chapter 3 weeks ago. Thanks for pointing that out, Eipok.


	14. Chapter 12: Gunpoint Politics

A/N: Just in time for the end of the weekend (Edit: Now it's Monday, since the site went down last night). I'm trying out new transitioning/time and location notifiers because Doc Manager was screwing my double dashes, but it can't even seem to comprehend single-spaced bold font... Also, I think I made a mistake in here where I gave someone two last names. If someone could find it and point it out, that'd be of great help. I've also consolidated the backstory elements into longer chunks as per greed11's suggestion. Also, I edited the last chapter according to Eipok's information about the Supercarrier. I wrote the chapter before the data from Reach came out, but I should have checked back. It's my error. Oh, and in response to greed11, MACs are spinal mounts because of the massive amount of magnets required to reach that level of acceleration. Coilguns (and railguns) do not produce recoil, because there is no gunpowder being detonated.

Chapter 12: Gunpoint Politics

**April 13th, 2653**

**Sangheili Empire world Harmonious Coexistence**

**Current Status: Occupied**

**Remaining Military: 1,000 survivors in hiding**

David Xiang stood with his hands clasped behind his back over the world. Even from space, massive firestorms could be seen engulfing well over half of the planet's major cities. Scans showed that a severe population reduction had taken place, and there was almost no resistance left on the planet. However, there were only about twenty-thousand hostiles, and David was itching to have a full combat test of his drone technology.

He was aware of Vas standing behind him. David knew that he couldn't truly comprehend what the alien was feeling, as he never really had a planet to call home. The world really had been remarkable, and it was a pity that it was this one that had been attacked. David knew that he could use the planet's unique history to his advantage, though, in lobbying for his ultimate goals. Everything was a power game, he reflected. It was his nature to win those power games.

"Governor, are you ready to reclaim your world?"

Vas turned, with a look almost approaching sadness in his eyes. "Yes."

David didn't even blink. "Atlantis command online. Raptor drones online, preparing for low-level strikes across the board. Limit kinetic ordinance dispersal to reduce collateral damage. Follow up with hard deployments of non-SecFour marines via pelican dropships to mop up ground operations."

In their slots across the ship, hundreds upon hundreds of AI-guided drones activated and whirled out of their cradles at speeds that would kill a human operator. They streaked down towards the surface in strict formation, free of the thoughts that a human would feel. The dumb AIs that coordinated them didn't, and couldn't feel anything remotely resembling remorse as they configured the ultra-high velocity slugs in the electronically fired assault guns mounted on the front of the drones. As they swooped through the atmosphere at Mach 7, they left a trail of fire in the air behind them.

Three broke formation, targeting a group of defensive artillery emplacements on a ridge. The tanks fired into the air, but flack was never designed to hit such fast moving targets. The assault gun rounds slammed into the ridge, filling the landscape with a tremendous roar and literally pulverizing the entire natural formation. As the rest of the formation split to attack different cities, they reconfigured their guns to fire in half-second, hundred round bursts, to safely eliminate small targets without hitting anything nearby. In minutes, ninety percent of effective hostile forces across the world were annihilated. The marines that followed had the easiest mop-up operation of their careers.

A single Pelican flew into the capital city unescorted. On board were Vas and Admiral Xiang. With resistance largely eliminated and the planet secured, the long process of rebuilding could begin. As the pelican soared above the city, Vas felt his heart fall at the sight of the destruction wrought. The city was in ruins. The pelican set down atop the palace complex, where plasma burns, craters, and heaps of bodies were still lying. Vas took a few tentative steps out, and stood tall, facing the city.

David peered after him. "Will you be alright? The colony needs someone to guide it now more than ever."

Vas nodded.

David saluted, and the pelican took off to head back to the _Atlantis_. David still had a ship full of marines who needed to go home.

**April 14th, 2653**

**New York City**

**UEG Capital World Earth**

**Current Status: Fortified**

**Available Military Assets:  
UNSC Home Fleet**

**400 Super-MAC platforms**

**1,000,000+ Personnel**

-United Earth Government Capital-

"We can confirm the existence of a potential hostile force across this Forerunner slipspace device. I recommend using military force to secure the device and prevent any further incursions." Admiral Xiang wrapped up his report to the Secretary-General.

She looked quite perturbed at the information. "If it's any consolation, ma'am, your military spending bill that was in all reality pointless and wasteful in peacetime is now good for something."

"Admiral, you've been complicit in a wide variety of deceptions and operations that compromise the integrity of the U.N. Charter. I've let you keep your job because of your invaluable political support from the military-industrial complex, but I'm beginning to think that you're more trouble than you're worth."

David mentally sighed. He knew that any dealings with the civilian government would be difficult. Many still held a grudge against the UNSC for the military takeover of government during the Human-Covenant war. "I apologize again for hijacking your science expeditions ma'am, but this was of vital importance. Rest assured, ONI is not withholding any further information. Also, we've secured two high-ranking prisoners. You may wish to negotiate with them as you wish. That's not my job."

The secretary-general shook her head. "David, what am I ever going to do with you?"

The admiral allowed himself the hint of a smile. "You're going to kneel over and admit my undeniable genius."

She scoffed. "If I didn't know you better, David, I'd call that hubris. As it stands, it is insubordination."

David motioned at the entrance to the Secretary-General's office. "I'd love to keep arguing with you, Nicole, but the prisoners have arrived."

Jedi Master Darrus Jeht and his apprentice, Artrus Orkun, were ushered into the plush room by a team of ODSTs. The Secretary-General wished she could see the troopers' faces behind their polarized visors.

David spoke again, "These are prisoners captured in a short but fierce battle with Spartans. They held their own fairly well. They're the Jedi we mentioned in the report. It's fortunate that we managed to download so much information from the systems of the derelict vessels."

The Secretary-General looked at the robed men. The older one projected an aura of calm and serenity, matching the file's description of a caste of warrier-monks, people dedicated to peace yet unparalleled in war. "Darrus Jeht is your name, yes? I am the Secretary-General of the United Earth Government and United Nations, the sole governing body of humanity in our plane of existence. We possess dozens of worlds, though few are settled. I apologize for having to conduct our diplomacy at gunpoint, but would you like to become an ambassador to us? We wish to have no conflict with anyone on your side of the Gateway."

The younger Jedi exploded. It was quite a contrast to the master's reserved calm. "How dare you insult us! We are Jedi, and your act of war will bring the might of the entire Republic down upon your worthless heads!"

Darrus held up a hand and slienced Artus. "I apologize on the behalf of my padawan. He is young, and easily excitable. I would be honored, but I request that my lightsaber be returned to me, and that I not be held prisoner." Privately, Darrus felt an increasing sense of unease at his inability to discern the Force in any of these humans.

David stood up from the wall he was leaning against. "Ma'am, I don't think-"

"David, you never think when you're around me. You're request is granted... Ambassador. We will send your padawan back to your capital with the Admiral as a sign of goodwill. Where did you get that monster ship anyway, David?"

"Sorry ma'am, but even you don't have security clearance for that, but I do thank you for making sure that the readings on the Solar System scopes didn't make it back to Admiralty. Are you sure the _Atlantis_ is not visible behind the moon?"

Nicole huffed. "Since when does the Secretary-General of the UEG not have clearance? Of course it's of the scopes now. We still haven't replaced all the lunar sensors fried during the Covenant War."

"Since when do Full Admirals in the UNSC have to perform babysitting duties for telekinetic juvenile delinquents?" retorted David.

"Don't speak with such disrespect of a battle-honed Jedi!" Artus protested.

"There's one more thing." David mentioned.

"What's that?"

"In precisely five minutes, there will be an attempt on your life by a suicide cargo freighter." David informed her calmly.

"What? You just sat on that information?" she practically screamed.

David shifted around uncomfortable, "Well, not really. But there's a complex plan in motion that I'm incapable of stopping at this point. Suffice to say, the Second Insurrection is beginning. You'd best evacuate critical personnel. Do it quietly."

The Secretary-General seemed off-balance, unable to believe what was going on. "What about everyone else?"

"The Innies have got spies everywhere. They'll realize that we know. These aren't the fractured rebel groups that have been left over since the War. This is a genuine Insurrection. Ambassador, get yourself out of here."

Darrus nodded calmly and left with the ODSTs.

"Ma'am, please follow me up to the 1,501st floor." David said as he moved towards the other elevator.

Nicole looked around in confusion. "This is the top floor. There is no floor above here."

David ignored her. "Authorization code Winter-Charlie-Four. Override Xiang-Alpha-Alpha-Seven."

The elevator chimed. "1,501st floor access authorized. Xiang override of security protocol accepted. Activating emergency contingency."

"David, what's going on?"

"Nicole, get in right now. Prisoner, follow us." David pulled out his M6H service pistol as the elevator doors closed.

The group stepped out into a sterile-looking room, devoid of any features except a blue interface that Admiral Xiang quickly stepped over to and interacted with. The back wall popped outwards, revealing sets of armor and a few very narrow pods. The front wall separated as well, showing a small ring that lit up with intense blue light.

Over in the back, Admiral Xiang was already equipping one of the suits of armor. He gestured towards a smaller, less overtly militaristic looking suit. "That one's yours, Nicole. It's already fitted." As she suited up as well, David manhandled Artus into one of the cylindrical pods.

"_Atlantis_, stand by to receive packages."

"_Atlantis_ confirms, Admiral. Standing by."

David pushed the pod through. "See you on the other side, ma'am."

He flipped backwards through the gate.

The Secretary-General of the United Earth Government stood in a suit of armor she had never seen before, about to step into a machine using technology the likes of which were supposed to be alien to humanity. She dived in.

_Intermission: A Memory_

_Young David Xiang carefully examined the bee perched precariously on a flower in the lovely garden in the sky. He was thirteen, and yet his careful, unimposing movements suggested a veteran diplomat under his outside appearance. He carefully made a photorealistic sketch of the bee, without so much as making a noise, labeling each body part carefully. It wasn't often that the man whom his father had watch over him saw fit to bring him to Earth, and he was going to make the most of it. He was aware of movement behind him. Light. Carefree. It must be a young female._

_"Strange child. What're you doing?" she asked._

_"I am categorically analyzing this bee." he replied with a hint of an unusual accent, not bothering to turn._

_"Aren't you afraid of getting stung?" The girl was persistent._

_"It will not sting me. If it did, it would not hurt me."_

_The girl seemed irritated at his responses. "Hey, you're right next to the edge. Do you know how many floors it is down to the ground?"_

_It was David's turn to grow irritated. "There is mechanical netting installed to prevent accidents."_

_He stood and turned to face this person. She was blond, light-skinned, dressed as formally as he was. David noted in his mind that she must have been the daughter of one of the patrons of the hotel. "Who are you?"_

_"My name is Nicole. What's yours?"_

_"I am David. David Xiang. Who are your parents?"_

_She shaded her delicate face with her hand as the sun crossed the threshold of the skyscraper. "My daddy's an engineer, and my mom is here with him on a business trip. He said we could have a vacation while he worked. What about you?"_

_David felt hollow. "I don't have a mother, and I have never met my father."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_"Don't be. He is a great man, greater than I will ever be."_

_They talked until the sun in the distance glowed a deep orange on the horizon._

_Nicole rose as her parents called her. "I'm glad I made a friend here, David." She ran to her parents, leaving David with his thoughts._

_"A friend..."_

**April 14th, 2653**

**In Lunar Orbit**

**Dreadnaught **_**Atlantis**_

David left to pod lying unceremoniously on the floor and palmed the control panel on the blast door before him, revealing the bridge. He heard the portal generator behind him shut off. "Glad you could make it Ma'am. Let's watch the unfolding footage, shall we? We only require a wait of approximately ten seconds before detonation."

She numbly watched the feed as several freighters abruptly altered course, angling towards the UEG capital building. A luxury liner dropped out of the sky as well, and the ships converged on the building in a blinding flash of light. When it was over, the building still stood, but the entire structure was gutted.

David put a hand on the Secretary-General's shoulder. "I've already issued a dispatch confirming you're fine, but you need to come with me. There's something you need to see."

She nodded numbly.

"Helm, prepare for slipspace departure at Sol's inferior jump point. Set a course for Olympus. In addition, please inform Mr. Murloc that I will be needing the people on the list."

**April 16th, 2653**

**In Orbit**

**Coloniae Primarii Capital World Olympus**

**Military Assets Unknown**

**Population: 14 Billion**

**Nominal Affiliation: UEG**

David peered down the wide wall panel viewscreen at Olympus. It was the crown jewel of Project Renaissance, a project that he felt he should no longer keep hidden from the highest civilian authority in the UEG.

"David, what the hell is this place?" the civilian in question demanded.

"Did I ever mention to you that you look absolutely smashing in that armor?" he mused.

"What? Hey! Focus! What exactly is this planet?"

"This is Olympus, capital of the Coloniae Primarii. These colonies are the most important brainchild of my father, William Xiang. You know him as the man behind the massive tube-born baby program to seed Earth and re-terraformed worlds like Reach with life. This is an extension of that program on a much larger scale, across countless systems. There were still sizable human populations on small colonies far away from Earth after the War, and we tapped into those. The other surviving colonies are now the Coloniae Secundi. My father's data projections indicated that with neglect by the UEG during the reconstruction process, they might have formed their own governments. Both groups are governed by ONI SecFour, and by extension, me. We employ advanced social techniques here, where we were free to experiment without traditional moral constraints. Crime is almost zero, and the societies SecFour created are far advanced beyond Earth's. Part of it is the culture. If we raise children from the hour of their births to behave a certain way, to value certain things, and we make sure we do it right, they grow up into the society we want them to. The government here is extremely powerful, yet we don't have people complaining about violated rights. It's wonderful when humanity gets a chance to start anew with the leadership of the old."

"How?"

"Well, we had unlimited resources because of the UNSC martial law. We had the means, and we wanted a better future for humanity, beyond the grievances of old. The government here is ruled by a council that chooses its members from the best and brightest. There is no democracy, no politics, but we ensure the system functions within the rights of man by keeping it in check with an advisory council of AIs. AIs also preside over all judiciary and bureaucratic positions. The disadvantage of an expansive government used to be massive inefficiency. That problem no longer exists. Welcome to the closest anyone's gotten to utopia in a long, long time."

Nicole smirked. "So much for no more secrets, David."

He winced. "Oops."

"What is SecFour, anyway?" she asked.

"It's the newest section of ONI. The entire goal of it is to control the Coloniae, and to ensure humanity's continued dominance and survival from behind the scenes. We will eventually revert control of the Coloniae to the UEG and reveal their existence, but only when we see fit."

David paused. "And ma'am, there is no need to tell anyone else this."

"The things I do for you, David." she sighed.

"And Mrs. Secretary-General, how much would you like to visit Sanghelios?" he asked.

Her jaw practically dropped to the ground.

"I'll take that as a "Very much, David." "

**April 17th, 2653**

**Sangheili Capital Sanghelios**

**Estimated Military Assets:**

**200 Capital Ships**

**50 Defense Stations**

**Unknown Ground Assets**

Admiral Xiang pulled up a viewscreen with the not very happy Imperial Admiral on it. "Xiang, I would very much like to know why human weapons were fired on one of our colonies!"

"I humbly apologize, Imperial Admiral. Harmonious coexistence was attacked by unidentified forces a week and a half ago. I'm sure you received the distress call recently. I authorized a counteroffensive operation after receiving the distress call."

Xylan's features softened slightly. Only a trained human such as David would have noticed the difference. "Then we are ready to proceed with the tribunal."

"Agreed. I had not expected to start stage two this early. I would have assumed that the council wouldn't be as... receptive... to the plan."

"Things were worse than we expected. The circumstances have changed."

"Very well. Initiate stage two."

-2 Hours Later, Planetside, Inner Sanctum of the Sangheili High Council-

Secretary-General Nicole Amandin was completely lost in the architecture of Sangheilios. Vadam was a beautiful state, and the city of Vadam was certainly one of the most beautiful she had ever seen, from the small, rounded structures that served as homes on the outskirts to the graceful and absolutely massive spires that dominated the central districts of the city. The highest of these spires was the Keep of Thel 'Vadam, the center of power in Vadam and indeed Sangheilios, perched atop the range of mountains and facing the large harbour thirty miles away. The purple and silver hues of the smooth, curved structures was contrasted by diverse light and colour. After the War, sangheili culture may still have been militaristic and function-driven, some semblance of culture had finally returned. The phantom climbed up towards the high spires of the Vadam Keep. Nicole knew that under the facade of elegance lay a fortress teaming with enough weaponry to annihilate a battlegroup, but that didn't make it any less wondrous and beautiful.

"It's magnificent, isn't it?" said David, as if reading her thoughts, "The Sangheili never actually permitted me to set foot on the planet."

The phantom gently set down on an extended platform. There was a softly glowing purple path leading to a massive arched door. The path was lined with sangheili that looked like Honor Guards. "Lights of Sanghelios" David whispered.

"Welcome, my friend." a Sangheili said in a low rumble. He was resplendent in shining gold and black armour, with a traditional cape of doarmir fur. "The hearings will begin shortly. We have already brought Vas Jadarn here."

"Have you brought the other representatives?" David inquired.

"Yes."

As they strode through the massive doorway, Nicole whispered, "Friend?"

"Sorry. Did you think you were special? Not that you're not. He father was a friend of my father."

The Council Chambers were filled with quiet murmurings as dozens of the most powerful leaders of every former Covenant race, with the exception of the Jiralhanae deliberated on random matters. A deafening silence fell over the room as the Imperial Admiral and the two humans entered. An indignant kig-yar spoke up, "Why do you bring humans into our presence, sangheili?"

Xylan glared at the offending council member. "They saved the colony, and are vital witnesses to the events that happened there. Or have you forgotten your position, _scavenger_?"

The Unggoy delegation burst into catcalls and cheering, while the rest of the kig-yar shook their heads and booed.

Xylan mounted the raised podium in the center of the chamber. "My colleagues, we are gathered here today to examine the events surrounding a criminal, cowardly, and utterly pathetic attack on one of our most important colonies: Harmonious Coexistence. Many of us were there when that colony was founded as a sign of progress and peace to come, and the defiling of such a world cannot go unpunished."

Several members of the assembly nodded in agreement, especially the sangheili. The unggoy looked ill at the thought of more fighting.

"Planetary Governor Vas Jadarn has already provided us with testimony on the attack, and we shall now hear from the humans that rescued them. Full Admiral David Xiang, UNSC, please recount your knowledge to our honored council."

David stepped up. "My ship was on our way back to Earth after a meeting with the esteemed Imperial Admiral when we made a short stop. During this time, we were relatively near Harmonious Coexistence, and picked up the distress call from a local comm buoy. We immediately headed to the planet, destroyed one of the two attacking ships, and rescued the planetary governor. We were unable to take on the large battleship that remained over the planet, so we retrieved a much more powerful force. However, by the time of our return, only enemy ground assets remained, which we neutralized with minimum civilian casualties."

The kig-yar looked discontented at having nothing to nitpick about.

"Near the location of the destroyed Ark, there is another large Forerunner construct." David continued.

"I'm sorry, _human_, but what does this have to do with the invasion?" the lead kig-yar delegate interrupted.

"It creates an interdimensional slipspace portal. This is where our enemies came from. My gathered intelligence suggests a fully populated galaxy, much more expansive than our own, with massive wars being fought with thousands upon thousands of ships at a time, like the grand fleets of the old Covenant before it was destroyed in the Greatest War. Alone, we stand no chance. But if we all stand together, side by side as brothers in arms, we can save each other. Let not the grievances of the past stand between us. The War has been over for a hundred years, yet we still resent each other, and prepare for possible conflict against each other. Can you not see that we aren't the real threat, that by fighting amongst ourselves we let others destroy us? You have all already chosen to loosely work together in the spirit of the old Covenant, but I say we form an entirely new alliance, one that will make the stars tremble in fear and awe."

Xylan stood up and roared. "The State of Vadam seconds this motion!"

Two of the sangheili representatives left, but all the others stood. "Long have our fathers respected your prowess, your tenacity, and you bravery and heroism in the face of infinitely insurmountable odds. We are proud to stand with you."

The unggoy clamored for several minutes before one stood. "The sangheili, they're always really really nice to us. If they think this is good, so do we! We never want to fight, but we will to defend our homes."

A deacon rose in the back. "The Lekgolo agree. They think the benefits outweigh the problems."

The kig-yar snapped at each other, and over half of the delegation left. "Those of use that remain will help you. There were never many of us here anyway. Too many have gone with the Covenant."

A yanme'e flittered up in the background. "Most of our kind are with the Jiralhanae as well, but we will join you."

David elbowed Nicole. "This is the part where you stand up and pledge humanity's support."

"You know I can't do that!"

"I already rigged the upcoming vote that you'll push. Just do it."

"You did what?"

Admiral Xiang unceremoniously shoved her forward.

"I am the Secretary-General of the United Earth Government, the government of humanity. Today, I am glad to join you all in this new venture to preserve peace in our galaxy. Humanity will do its part to help the common good."

Xylan stepped forward. "All willing to join, sign this ratification document. Today, we witness the birth of the greatest galactic power in our histories. We witness the birth of the United Coalition of Species."

The sound in the grand chamber reached a roar as members from every species cheered. David shook the hand of Xylan, who grabbed him in a bear hug. "Stage two is complete as planned."

_Intermission: A Memory_

_Gates High School in New York was a beautiful campus, high-tech and urban in some places and overflowing with decorative vegetation in others. David strode up the steps. It wasn't often that he had a chance to savor the world around him like this, purely because it wasn't often that there was a world around him. Knowing the nature of his work though, he could care less if he had a normal childhood or not. At 17, David was already on the path to becoming one of the most powerful humans in the galaxy, yet his father had just died without ever meeting his son. ONI refused to disclose where and when; they only said that there would be no body and no funeral. William Xiang never existed. David sighed as he perched on a slab of concrete unadorned by flowers. _

_The bell rang, signaling the end of school. The students came out, some fools, some geniuses, all human. Seeing them only steeled David's resolve, for it was for these people's future that he would fight to preserve. One particular group of young females caught his eye, one of whom was still familiar after so many years. They were busily chatting away about school, friends, and life. David approached them. "Excuse me, but would one of you happen to be Nicole Amandin?"_

_A girl giggled. "You have a weird accent. Do you go to our school?"_

_"I do not attend this school. My basic education was completed years ago. Again, I ask, is one of you named Nicole?"_

_A girl stepped forward, with a curious look in her eye. "Do I know you?"_

_David let a ghost of a smile grace his face. "Yes. Ego nomen David Xiang est."_

_The outspoken girl piped up again. "Is that Italian or something?"_

_"You are irrelevant. It is Latin."_

_Nicole suddenly recognized him. "You?"_

_"Upon my 18th birthday, I will no longer be under ONI stewardship," he handed her a datapad, "you may contact me here. I have an important message for you. You see the world around you, you see what you perceive to be wrong, things that should change. You are more right than you realize, but there are precious few who are willing to spearhead change. Follow your convictions, or they are meaningless. If the world's wrong, fix it. I look forward to conversing more with you soon."_

_He strode away._

_"David!" she called._

_He paused._

_"Who are you?"_

_For a moment, he had no response. "That, is an excellent question. Perhaps you can answer it."_

_Nicole was left pondering that statement as the pelican roared into the sky, bright with the afternoon sun. She would continue to ponder it for many years to come._

-4 Hours Later-

"David, you've been planning this all along."

"Have not."

"Yes, you have."

"Nice dress. I'm surprised we had something like that aboard. Did you see that kig-yar councilor? He rather enjoyed the fruit salad, which even I must say was quite delectable..."

"Stop. I hate it when you do that, you know? How long."

"How long what."

"How long has this been planned for."

"Since the day my father died."

For once, Nicole noticed that David's face registered real, unconcealed emotion. He had never known his father, yet he could still weep for him.

He turned to her again. "The _Guardian of Sanghelios_ will return you to Earth. I'll go drop that idiot kid off and begin diplomatic relations."

As the Secretary-General departed, she said, "Try not to do anything stupid, will you?"

David nodded, and waited until he was sure she couldn't hear.

"29th fleet, battlegroups New York through Shanghai, prepare to mobilize."

A/N: I'm finally bringing the two universes into full contact. Expect plenty of political machinations and atypical outcomes. Personally, I think it's going to be quite interesting when Admiral Xiang and Chancellor Palpatine meet. When there are two smooth operators in one room, things can get... messy. And no, I will not do the thing where all the "good guys" get together and kick ass unrealistically. People just don't work that way. That also means that the United Coalition is not going to be all fun and laughs. Again, please review, and for those of you reading this, thanks for sticking with me from the beginning. I know the initial quality was not the greatest, and some chapters have fallen flat on their faces, but hopefully in the end it will have been worth it.


	15. Chapter 13: Meetings and Machinations

A/N: Contrary to what I assume is popular belief, I am actually not dead. Or rather, the story is actually not dead. So miracles apparently do exist, seeing as this chapter is finally, finally going up. School hasn't been kind to me, especially in terms of work loads, for a long time. I've also had to deal with family issues, personal issues, and problems with friends, so I didn't get any work done for a half year, which is unacceptable. I owe it to anyone who bothers reading this to continue, and to provide timely updates. Thankfully, I had this small reprieve, called Spring Break (and even now I have plenty of work), and I had to continue. Rest assured, the plot has already been completed in my head since somewhere around Chapter 4, so I will see this through. And if anyone still reads this, thanks for sticking around in spite of me. To Jacob, Wertmon, and the others who had questions, I will endeavour to answer them after the chapter.

Chapter 13: Meetings and Machinations

**Dimension R2 (Star Wars)  
****0500 Hours (Manassas, Reach Time)  
****Unknown Location, en route to Coruscant  
****UNSC Force Composition:  
****5 Battlegroups  
****120 Vessels**

Commodore Day's guess was as good as anyone's as to why he and a handful of others from the _Kitten_ expedition were suddenly drafted into Admiral Xiang's armada, but he did know that the Admiral planned to keep the entire incident under wraps for the time being. Why he would want to do such a thing was beyond James's deductive abilities, but the public was certainly panicked enough already with the attempted assassination. He was, however, more privileged than the rest of his people in that he knew exactly what they were doing back on the other side of the portal. Such knowledge was one of the benefits of working as the flag captain for the admiral, even if SecFour's severance package was absolute garbage.

James turned to face the admiral in question, who was, as ever, sipping from his apparently bottomless cup of tea.

"Sir?" he ventured.

"Speak your mind, Commodore."

"I noticed you didn't bring anyone from the state department with us."

Xiang gave a rare chuckle. "Those fools couldn't negotiate a peace treaty with the Swiss. I will be conducting all diplomatic policy on this mission, Commodore."

"What's our plan, sir?" he asked.

"We possess complete and thorough intelligence in the most important areas of knowledge pertaining to their universe as a result of the materials on their derelict's computers, so we have the upper hand politically. Their coordinates put the capital planet, Coruscant, here," David jabbed at the old-fashioned 2D screen with a pointer, "which means we'll have a little while of slipspace travel ahead of us. Using their military data, I have pinpointed locations in-atmosphere for us to drop in beneath the orbital grid. Since their technology prohibits in-atmosphere jumps, we'll be safe. Upon arrival, ships will initiate a hard burn into the lower atmosphere for the theatrics, and we'll send three Pelicans down."

"Won't they shoot you, sir?"

"We'll hack all of their networks and begin broadcasting a message planetwide of our intent," David replied. He checked his watch.

"Well, Commodore, it's about time to turn in to the cryosleep pods. When we land, yield the deck to the XO and join me in my Pelican. Make sure the Chief's with us, too. Find the most unnecessarily ornate uniform you can, and try to dress up the marines, too."

James snapped to attention. "Sir!"

He spun on his heel and left the admiral to his planning.

**Coruscant**

Jedi Grand Master Yoda brooded in his chambers. It wasn't the weight of the Clone Wars, though, that he was disturbed. It was because of a disturbance in the Force. He couldn't discern it, but it seemed as if the Force was reacting to the presence, or absence, of something, and that something was headed towards Coruscant with great speed. Yoda gave a tired sigh. These Clone Wars had only lasted a year, yet the galaxy was already ravaged by terrible conflict the likes of which hadn't been seen for millennia. As he peered down into the shining world-city beneath the high towers of the Jedi Temple, he could not have realized that his opposite was contemplating much the same subject.

Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic was in his quarters as well. Unbeknownst to the Jedi that he so readily sacrificed over and over in the raging Clone Wars, Palpatine was also Darth Sidious, the very man who was leading the CIS. The Sith Lord was simultaneously ruler of the Republic and the Confederacy, pitting them against each other to further his own ends. Now, though, as he sensed the Force roil at some disturbance, Sidious began to harbor some doubt. Whatever this disturbance was, if it was powerful enough to disrupt the Force so much, it could just as easily throw apart the plans that Sidious and his dead mentor, Darth Bane, had been laying for a century. Sighing, Palpatine peered out the window into the soft glow of the evening sun.

What should have calmed Sidious startled him. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of pulsating blue ripples filling the sky just a mile above the traffic of Coruscant and well under the fleet in orbit and _inside_ the planetary shield. Out of these ripples came ships, some massive, some small, all of a design aesthetic utterly unfamiliar to Palpatine's eyes. Rather than the sleekness punctuated by blocky mechanical parts that characterized CIS vessels, or the angular profiles of the ships of the Republic, these vessels were rectangular, with many rough edges, recesses, and protrusions. They were completely utilitarian in appearance, like they existed to destroy. Palpatine tuned into the defense net's communications network.

"...What the?"

"Where'd they come from?"

"Scans show one-hundred twenty contacts, bearing due..."

"Where's the fleet? How'd they get in atmosphere?"

"Who are they? Someone get the Supreme Chancellor to a secure location!"

Panicked voices washed through the room before they fell into an ominous static. A shadow loomed over the structure Palpatine was in as the fleet floated in an almost leisurely manner through the sky. His personal communication screen flickered on, displaying a fairly youthful human male in an ornate uniform.

"Greetings, citizens of Coruscant," he began, "I am Admiral David Xiang of the United Nations Space Command. As of now I will assume the role of acting diplomatic liaison to your civilization from our United Earth Government. I apologize about this interruptions of your daily lives, but we have insufficient knowledge of your communication protocols. As the acting liaison, I hereby request a meeting with your Supreme Chancellor. We know where your Senate Building is located; I will land with an entourage. I expect that whatever proper diplomatic protocol you possess will be followed to the letter. Xiang out."

Sidious leaned back into his chair, stunned. Everything, everything he had planned was now threatened. But he resolved that he could still win. These new arrivals were naught but tools to be manipulated, and they would not change his course. As the Red Guard filed into his chambers, weapons ready, Palpatine called the Senate. They would meet with these strangers.

David Xiang finished adjusting the medals ordaining his uniform. Around him, he had brought Spartan Wolf Team as his personal guard. The interior of the Pelican was sparse, but it had a specialized command console, a console that Xiang now spoke into. "Augustus, prepare Cipher teams for insertion. Use the schematics that that Jedi gave us."

He gave a quick glance around the cabin. None of the Spartans seemed to have noticed, or, more likely, they were wisely ignoring what he was saying. The entire Pelican shook and jostled. As per David's instructions, they were to make a hard burn before pulling off a smooth landing. The Pelican swerved hard to the right, before suddenly settling down. At long last, the rear door unsealed and slower lowered.

Xiang stepped out, the red and gold trim of his uniform catching the sunlight.. The city, and planet, around him was a ecumenopolis, a concept only theorized by humans in Xiang's universe. It covered the entire planet, and this shining governmental center was quite beautiful. The beauty, though, at least in David's mind, was marred by the tens of thousands of shining, white-armored soldiers standing at rigid attention on either side of a long walkway. Whoever this Supreme Chancellor was, he had a subtly massive ego to make a diplomatic group travel up such a distance flanked by so many soldiers. According to the Jedi that was now an unofficial liaison to the UEG, those soldiers were clones. The very idea of it might have shocked Xiang were it not for the fact that his father was the architect of the program that restored and expanded upon humanity's population by literally breeding people with differentiated genomes in pods.

Out of the second Pelican, a single figure encased in green armor leaped out, followed by an entourage of marines in full dress from the third and final Pelican. The group assembled, and began to ceremoniously traverse the path to their waiting hosts.

When Admiral Xiang and Wolf Team finally ascended the steps to the waiting group, he was both pleasantly surprised and perturbed. The man standing between an intimidating squad of red-armored soldiers was middle-aged, and quite kind looking, but his guard looked like the kind that would accompany a dictator. And that warmhearted demeanor seemed just too perfect. He shouldn't have been this accepting of a fleet of strangers showing up on his doorstep.

"Greetings. I am Admiral David Xiang, acting representative of the United Earth Government. I presume that you are Supreme Chancellor Palpatine?"

Palpatine gave a warm smile. "I am indeed. On the behalf of the Galactic Republic, I welcome you. Please, please, enter the Senate Chambers with us. We have much to discuss together."

Palpatine peered at the man before him, but it was hard to discern who he was and what his motives were. The man wore a pitch-black uniform with almost royal red and gold trim and patterns. Off of one shoulder, a silver plate with blood red cloth was attached. The man's chest carried enough medals to decorate several other high-ranking military leaders. His entourage was dressed just as lavishly, with a naval officer in his white dress uniform and an honor guard. Curiously, there was a single soldier in a plain green suit of armor that had numerous scratches and a battered appearance.

It wasn't what he could see in the man that bothered him, though, it was what he couldn't. Darth Sidious could not sense the Force in any of these men before him. The Force around them seemed to recoil at their voids. The thought sent deep chills into him, a kind of fear that he had not felt for a very long time. For now, Sidious would put up with these newcomers, as he formulated a new plan for galactic dominance with the now irrevocably altered balance of power. The possiblities of new outcomes were staggering, and incredibly dangerous. Investigating these Force-negative humans would have to wait. Together, the men and their guards strode into the Senate building, each contemplating how to deal with the other, each an opponent so very similar to the other.

_Intermission: A Conversation_

_I trust that the biological devices are functioning properly, doctor?_

_They are, sir. How do you plan on delivering them to their destinations?_

_We have the Ciphers._

_Don't you think that that's overkill?_

_We have no proper estimate as to the abilities of these people. Nothing is overkill in the gathering of vital information, for such information can destroy empires and gods._

_So you think it'll come down to hostilities then?_

_It's best to be prepared, in any case. If it does, they'll have much greater numbers. Victory will only come with brilliant strategy and complete intelligence. As Sun Tzu said, "Victors win first, then go to war, while the defeated go first to war, then seek victory." We will win a war that may never happen years before it starts._

_Very astute._

_If I wasn't one of the most brilliant men alive, I wouldn't have this job. Not that anyone, least of all I, had a choice in the matter._

**Galactic City, Coruscant  
****Senate Chambers  
****1 Week After Arrival  
****1800 Hours Local Time**

After a week of massive information trading and political maneuverings, David Xiang was absolutely exhausted. Negotiations had been going nowhere, and tensions were running high after David's repeated refusal to enter the Clone Wars. Even worse, in the Republic's eyes, he was unwilling to open the Gateway for public use, something that would give the Republic's battered economy a much-needed new market. "I apologize, but again, we can't open the Gateway for public access as I'm sure there are criminal elements here in your universe just as willing to take advantage of it."

Palpatine rose. "That aside, how can you not be willing in the slightest to help us in this titanic war? Can you stand heartlessly aside will millions die?"

Palpatine was manipulating public opinion of the United Earth Government, and by extension, the Coalition, and both he and Xiang knew it.

"We have but a century to recover from a war the nearly brought about the very extinction of our species. How can you dare request aid from us when we are so few and so week?" David retorted, "The fleet that brought us here is one of the largest ever assembled by my people, and yet it is easily dwarfed by some of the smaller you possess! How can we even be of the slightest assistance?"

The Senate was rippled with murmurs of discontent. Xiang was losing this battle of words, and worse, he knew it.

"I stand by the U.N. charter that governs my people, and I will not commit to any military action without strong cause. While it is true that the C.I.S. initiated hostilities with our troops, we are reluctant to commit so many others to die over so slight an incident. I can only conscionably make a decision regarding your war when I have been able to converse with both sides and attempt a diplomatic solution."

The senate seemed like it was about to explode in a massive political catfight over these words.

David hastily continued before that could happen, "And as the son of the architect of part of my species' revival, allow me to assure you that I understand your economic strain. We can come to a compromise. A trade agreement can be worked out by placing some of our merchants on this side of the Gateway, avoiding the criminal element. I can also consider an entrance into the war after a diplomatic parlay. Perhaps we can arrange talks aboard my ship, as a neutral third party."

The senate's general mood became hard to discern, which was generally a sign of uncertainty. For several minutes, they conversed within themselves. One by one, delegates began to affirm a willingness to examine the proposals set forth by David as a compromise. Palpatine was genuinely surprised. His eyes narrowed. This new factor in his plans would be problematic indeed.

**Guardian of Sanghelios  
****In Orbit above Earth**

Nicole peered out of the viewscreen. Earth gleamed from space, one of the rare, pristine jewels that could support life in the galaxy. She had already given an impromptu address from the Guardian of Sanghelios affirming that she was alive and well, though her political opponents were sure to use the presence of such a heavily armed alien vessel to their advantage. The stock markets had already panicked as a result of the assassination attempt, and now her security ministers were informing her that activity was beginning to develop on many planets. She knew that this insurrection would be much more bloody and difficult to crush than the first. Many of the planets that had survived the Human-Covenant war were exactly the kind of fringe worlds that contained independent-minded, uneducated, laborer types in small populations. Because of that, only of the terraformed and re-seeded worlds that Admiral Xiang's father had overseen could be relied on for any degree of loyalty. The entire situation was a political nightmare. There were plenty of insurrectionist sympathizers in the population, especially amongst the opposition party. Nicole knew that the fastest and easiest way to crush military opposition was by calling upon the coalition, but she would look weak for relying on aliens to solve human internal affairs. The fact that said aliens had brought humanity to the very edge of the precipice of extinction only a century ago certainly couldn't help issues at all.

She heaved a sigh and turned to face the Sangheili commander behind her. "How would your people feel about fighting in small numbers under human commanders?"

The alien seemed almost startled by the question, though it was hard to tell. "Some would resent it, but it could be done. Why?"

"We may be able to earn some more trust for the rest of the coalition if you aid us in limited ways against our new insurrection."

The commander clacked his armored mandibles together thoughtfully. "Perhaps. Have your military leaders draft a plan and send it to us."

**Palace of the Republic  
****Galactic City  
****Coruscant**

The vast bureaucratic machinery of the Republic was evident in its highest governing offices. Yet, for all the people in the various rooms, few noticed the slight distortion of air moving around, and those that did easily ignored it. After all, why be perturbed by heat blurs in a warm room? If anyone had been paying any special attention, they likely would have noticed that the blur was actively moving, as if it had a purpose. Behind a pillar, shimmering hexagonal patterns writhed up and down the blur as the Cipher de-cloaked. Its armor was pitch black, not denoted by any form of identification. The helmet was completely black as well, though if the Cipher had been in combat mode, two vertically arranged red "eyes" would have activated, the bottom acting as a laser targeting device. Without further thought, the cipher moved further into the palace, occasionally sticking tiny dots onto walls. In such an important building, bugs were sure to be detected. Fortunately, these devices were organic.

Two guards rounded the corner, but the Cipher was already cloaked again. The first indication one of the guards had of its presence was the soft grasp of a gloved hand over his face. Microneedles efficiently administered a neurotoxin into his systems, and he died instantly. Unfortunately, his comrade turned at precisely that moment. Before his eyes even had an opportunity to widen, a hand darted out and grasped his throat. He died as he partner did. The Cipher carefully dragged their bodies into a maintenance droid cubby before moving on with its mission.

Several hallways down, the Cipher turned towards a locked door. It stared at it for all of three seconds before punching in an access code. The room was filled with computers. The Cipher methodically opened the panels on the floor and carefully stripped wires of their rubber insulation. To each, a small patch identical in appearance to the removed insulation was attached. The nano-filaments in each would record all impulses sent through the wires, and, if necessary, could be used to access any electronic devices networked to that particular computer center. The paneling was replaced, and all looked as if nothing were amiss.

The Cipher turned, and even then was already rolling to the side. A pole slashed through the air and impacted centimeters from the Cipher's helmet. Its owner had obviously been moving slow enough to not register on motion trackers. The Cipher back flipped into a standing position, arms at the ready. Before it stood four red-armored guards, wielding poles with crackling tips. These were the same as those that had accompanied the Chancellor. All four seemed to be in a ready stance. With their numbers, any direct attack would be futile. The Cipher bursted into an impossibly fast sprint, flipping its feet onto the wall before reaching the guards. In the brief seconds that it was running against the wall, the Cipher engaged the energy daggers in its gauntlets, patterned after those of Sangheili Spec Ops. The Red Guards were, however, some of the finest guards in the Republic, and they were already moving to parry.

Pushing off of the wall, the Cipher bisected one of the staffs and plunged the other blade into the guard's shoulder. It flung the body around to intercept the incoming staff of another guard before sliding to the floor and sweeping a guard over with its leg. The Cipher quickly pushed the embedded blade down through armor and internal organs before retracting it. A staff made contact, but to the guard's surprise a brilliant gold flash indicated an energy shield. The Cipher used the opportunity to decapitate the downed guard attempting to struggle to his feet. The remaining two charged as one, but the Cipher disappeared into thin air. One guard immediately halted; the other careened into the wall. Immediately, the Cipher appeared behind him and plunged a purple blade into his back. The final Red Guard backed towards the doorway, staff at the ready. The Cipher began sprinting towards him, zig-zagging and rapidly flipping its cloak. To the guard, it seemed as though it was teleporting left and right at an incredibly pace. Moments before contact, it disappeared completely. The last guard's heart was pounding, as he swiveled around wildly to locate the strange agent. After a full minute, his heart rate abated, and he reached for his comm. It hadn't been working earlier, but perhaps now...

The guard's finger touched another finger. He looked up. Two glowing red circles stared back, milliseconds before a purple, crystalline-looking blade plunged into him. The Cipher unlimbered from the roof, and gently landed on the floor. The micro-EMP burst he had set off upon contact to seal communications would have already aroused suspicion. Fortunately, there was always a Plan B. The Cipher slid back a panel on its wrist and tapped a command into the screen, uploading false information of a discontented Rodian criminal with tremendous skill into the database. It then carefully placed the four bodies next to the wide window in the outside hallway. The Cipher realized it was most fortuitous that this part of the structure was rarely ventured in. A small bomb of local design was placed by the door. The blast would propel the bodies out of the window, as if they had been killed by the bomb.

Voices were audible several hallways down. The Cipher immediately slid up against the wall and activated its cloak. As the voices seemed about to round the next corner, the bomb detonated. Alarms began to blare almost immediately, and no one noticed the heat blur that leaped through the smoke and out the shattered wall, out the same way that four unfortunate Red Guard just fell hundreds of stories. The Cipher slid down to the next ledge, and as it began the long climb down, it breathed into its mouthpiece, "Atlantis command, the doctor's goods have been delivered. Addendum: four patients had adverse reactions to the medication."

**Jedi Temple**

David Xiang stood in a small balcony, overlooking a vast courtyard. Beside him stood the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, a relatively youthful Jedi Master of high station on the Council. Xiang was impressed by both his wisdom and intellect, though the master's dislike of military hardware seemed quite quixotic in an era of brutal warfare. Then again, much of the Jedi Order that Xiang had seen was somewhat quixotic, indeed even naive, and at least Kenobi had few qualms about using the necessary weapons and equipment when necessary, no matter how "uncivilized" they might have been. Before the two, entire armies of clones marched and boarded ships in the massive space below.

"Is the padawan I returned, Artus, alright? He did not seem to enjoy captivity as much as his master," the admiral asked.

Kenobi stared off into the distance, troubled. "He has too much internal disquiet, too much resentment."

"So you fear that he is falling to your 'Dark Side'?"

"Yes."

David turned. "Master Kenobi, I mean no offense, but do you realize how much your own code forces many into this 'Dark Side'?"

Obi-Wan was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"You force those under your tutelage to adhere to only the very highest standards of nobility and virtue no matter the situation, to not feel emotion in any capacity, lest it turn them to the dark, is that not so?"

"That is true."

"Yet, a state of complete nobility is unnatural, perhaps even unattainable, and emotion is one of the most powerful forces in existence. Surely, even you, esteemed amongst the High Council, have felt attachment?"

Obi-Wan looked down. "I once did," he conceded.

"By telling Jedi these things, you lead them to believe all else is dark, and therefore when they stray, they inevitably assume that they are going to the dark. Because mind reigns over matter, they end up doing so, not always because of their actions but because of their strict morality. A presupposition of darkness will eventually cause it."

Kenobi seemed extremely disturbed at the idea. "But our traditions have been in place for millennia."

"And so have your Sith and Dark Jedi," Xiang countered, "Indeed, emotion can be useful, so why not harness it, and control it to one's own will, rather than suppress it?"

The Jedi Master had never thought of such stratified beliefs in this way before, and was already extremely conflicted. A part of him, the part that had always strained at pointless rules, said that the newcomer was right. The other, the part trained for decades by the Order, was already fretting of a fall to the Dark Side.

"I'll leave you to think on that."

But before David could leave, his wrist computer lit up. With a few quick taps, a communications channel was opened.

"Sir, a message has come through. The talks are to go ahead as planned," a random adjutant informed him.

"Excellent. Inform the Senate that the fleet will move to Mandalore. According to Master Kenobi, it's neutral at the moment. Xiang out."

Admiral Xiang turned back to Obi-Wan. "Well, Master Kenobi, it seems that we have convinced them to attempt the diplomacy we both value so highly. I would like you to represent the Republic. I hear that negotiations are something of a specialty for you."

**Orbital Defense Grid  
****Monitoring Platform  
****Sanghelios**

An unggoy, nearly asleep at what passed for a desk, was alerted by an insistent beeping. One of the cloaked probes that the humans had placed for the Sangheili near one of the potential mustering sites for Old Covenant fleets, though the jiralhanae hadn't been active for an entire century. The beeping increased in frequency, and the annoyed unggoy finally roused himself, if only to shut the blasted thing off. Instead, he fell off his small sitting area in shock. The scopes were swarming with blips. The jiralhanae were returning.

A/N: For all those prepping scathing reviews, please send them. I deserve them. I didn't even read this chapter over a single time, just wrote it and uploaded, so expect errors. As the ending hopefully demonstrated, the next chapter will wrap up two major story arcs, that of the jiralhanae (and Old Covenant remnant), and the diplomatic mission to the Star Wars continuity that will decided how the UEG becomes involved there. That next chapter will be the end of this entire arc, as I am structuring these much like television seaons, with each wrapped up with something of a conclusion. Next comes a series of semi-unconnected one-time stories of the main characters as they separate and go their own ways in the aftermath of the next chapter (which I hope will be a spectacular finale). It'll be something of a Season 1.5, and it'll be far more combat and action heavy. After that, the main story arc involving the galaxies at large will continue.

First, to Wertmon: As you now know, the Chief was still with Xiang's fleet. Sorry I didn't make that clearer in previous chapters.

To Greed11: I think I'll just go for realistic enough to feel decent, but still fun. You know, like most of the video games that aren't sims or Call of Duty. Thanks for the input.

To Eipok: I'll work on it for the future, since I have little enough time without having to revise. Thanks for the advice.

To Jacob:  
1) and 7) I have considered pairings. Those are the only unfinalized portion of the plot. However, the Chief won't be in any, as I feel that he works better as an enigmatic hero-behind-the-visor larger-than-life figure. My apologies, if you really felt strongly about something like that.

2) The tech isn't necessarily better, just different. Admittedly, the Covenant have the ability to absolutely annihilite most opposition, their main strength lies in precision slipspace and shield tech. Also, keep in mind that the Star Wars universe has a much, much more massive scale. It's like if China fought a war with Germany. Does Germany have better tech? Perhaps, if only by a little. But the numbers would win.

3) Er.. no comment. (Good guess, but that'll come after the "finale").

4) ONI will obviously want their grubby little hands on Cortana for research (metastability is exceedingly rare, to say the least), but what're the chances of either the Chief or Xiang turning her over?

5) The flood will not be involved.

6) As of now, I have no plans regarding those MIA Spartans.

8) The newer models of those vehicles might pop up. The Vulture's descendant, the Eagle, for instance, has already made an appearance.

9) It's 1 year in to the Clone Wars. Order 66 is a whiles away yet.

10) This chapter hopefully showed you some of his mindset. His carefully laid plans are basically worthless with the addition of a third party. As you can see, both he and Xiang are already scheming against each other.

To everyone else, thanks for all the support (no matter how little I deserve it), and while updates may be sparse, I refuse to let this story die.


	16. Chapter 14: Return of War

A/N: Two months is an improvement over my last absence, I think. Summer's a wonderful thing. Plenty of time to do nothing and to write. This chapter is hopefully very satisfying, since it essentially finishes off the diplomatic and political plot threads. It doesn't do a really good job of wrapping up all the other dangling story arcs, but that's what the rest of the story will be for. So, enjoy, everyone, and again previous questions in the reviews will be answered at the end. Also: Now with 200% more Unggoy!  
Edit: Thanks, Microsoft, for announcing Halo 4 and therefore making the whole beginning of this story moot point. So much for finishing the fight, eh?

Chapter 14: Return of War

**Assault Carrier **_**Harbinger of Redemption  
**_**In Geosynchronous Orbit  
Sanghelios  
Fleet Composition: 200 Vessels**

In the absence of Imperial Admiral Xylan 'Jar Vadam, the command of the Combined Fleet of Sanghelios fell to Supreme Commander Zeno 'Moram. The Fleet was the largest single combat group in Sangheili space outside of the Delta Halo quarantine fleet, but was much diminished compared to the mighty fleets of thousands that once struck fear into the hearts of humans. And, if the sensor buoys were to be believed, that fleet of two hundred would need to hold off an attack from an armada four times its size. The Imperial Admiral had warned of the possibility of such an attack for years, but few had heeded those warnings after a century of jiralhanae inactivity. At least, Zeno mused, the fleet had the small solace of knowing that the enemy were coming. The brutes would come, and the sangheili and their compatriots would burn them from their space with plasma.

As if on cue, blue holes neatly carved themselves into space, as the last fleet of the Old Covenant emerged.

"All ships, accelerate to combat speed! Fleet of Meditation, angle forty degrees towards Sanghelios and disperse into a sphere formation!" Zeno called out.

"How many of them are there?"

"Supreme Commander! We're outnumbered four to one!" a panicking unggoy called out from his station.

Zeno turned to face the offending grunt. It was already curling up into a fetal position.

"I believe one of my honored predecessors, Rtas 'Vadum, once said that such odds made it only an even fight."

The unggoy's cheeks were quivering. "Will... will we win?"

Zeno gave the unggoy a hardy slap of reassurance that sent it flying across the command room into a console. "We will crush them, and when we do, I'll see to it that you receive extra rations and a visit to the open methane room."

From within the crumpled console, the unggoy made some small noise that the Commander interpreted as a sort of affirmative.

"Weapons, prepare volleys of plasma torpedoes, standard spread, and target lead ships. Acquire lead enemy cruisers with energy projectors one through four, and target the first carrier with projectors five through seven. All pulse lasers, prepare firing solutions on incoming seraphs."

Blue streaks arced out from the _Harbinger of Redemption_ as the plasma torpedoes raced towards the enemy fleet. Several of the lead frigates were destroyed outright in brilliant blue explosions, while the larger CCS-class ships absorbed the salvos with their shields. Other ships launched their torpedoes into the fray as well, filling the darkness of the void with whirling blue contrails and detonations. The jiralhanae returned fire, launching their own torpedoes. Several of the Sangheili ships shuddered under the impacts, but one jiralhanae CCS-class mistimed its launch, dropping its shield moments before dozens of plasma torpedoes hit its hull. For a brief moment, it looked as though it would hold together, but a string of secondary explosion buckled the ship as it shattered into flaming fragments.

A deep rumble shook the entire vessel. "Commander, multiple plasma torpedo impacts!"

"Shield levels?"

"Holding at 80%"

Zeno frowned. "Several opening volleys should have caused more damage than that."

A sangheili at the power station called out, "The magnetic fields on the torpedoes were unfocused. The fools know not how to use the technology."

Thin, blindingly bright beams lanced out of the massive carrier towards enemy ships as the particle projectors fired. One brute ship was neatly bisected down the center, the two halves retaining their form until secondary explosions triggered by the intense heat and shock tore them apart.

"Exploit their disorganization. Order the 4th battlegroup to flank their sphere formation and engage at close range."

The assault carrier leading the 4th battlegroup formed up into a wedge with the other dozen or so ships that it led, penetrating into the side of the jiralhanae sphere formation. At close range, the ships were free to viciously rake each other with hundreds of flashing pulse lasers. A jiralhanae CCS-class went up as two particle projectors converged on it, the explosion pushing an unwary brute frigate into the shields of a cruiser. The cruiser's shields flashed, but the frigate had no such fortune, crumpling like a tin can under the weight of an elephant. The disorganized brutes could not maintain their formation, and the sphere slowly began to turn into a vicious melee spreading from the initial point of contact. Many, in their haste to kill some of the hated sangheili, inadvertently collided with their compatriots.

Zeno watched the battle unfold on his holographic display with no small amount of satisfaction. "We shall send those curs running back whence they came with singed flesh, crying for a reprieve. Form up into the three-pronged pincer formation and encircle their collapsed sphere. Does anyone have an estimate as to the remaining vessel tally?"

"We've still got a hundred and fourteen, and all of our big ships. The brutes have around five hundred," the unggoy next to the tactical readout informed him.

"Order the fleet master of the 4th battlegroup to penetrate deeper into the formation," the Supreme Commander ordered.

"He only has eight of his twelve ships left!" someone informed him.

"That's still above half. Carry out the order."

The assault carrier at the head of the 4th battlegroup began to accelerate once more. With the jiralhanae in their state of disorder and confusion, the 4th battlegroup could feasibly penetrate through the center of the jumbled mess of the jiralhanae fleet, attack vulnerable or damaged ships that had been cycled in for protection, and shoot their way out the other side.

The fleet master reclined in his hover chair. "All plasma torpedoes and energy projectors, acquire forward targets. Ahead full."

A small frigate attempting to dart out of the way of the behemoth ship was gutted as the piercing particle beam of an energy projector lanced through it from bow to stern. A CCS-class battlecruiser from the 4th battlegroup fired a plasma torpedo at the stricken vessel, erasing it from existence in an expanding ball of plasma. Many of the ships closer to the center were indeed damaged, and several of the other 4th battlegroup CCS-classes easily destroyed a handful of destroyed and pack of frigates. One, however, was struck continuously by plasma torpedoes, its shield contorting and finally collapsing under the onslaught. The salvos that followed destroyed it, leaving the battlegroup with only seven ships.

The fleet master concentrated intently on what should have been the center of the enemy fleet. The blips were so close together at the very center that they seemed to meld into a larger blip, but there was no reason for any ships to be grouped so closely together. Even the jiralhanae would know that.

His suspicions were confirmed when multiple beams lanced out from behind a wall of frigates, boiling away the shields of the lead battlecruisers. Even more began firing, and nearly the entire battlegroup was destroyed or crippled in seconds. Several ships were belching plasma and fire into space, others explosively depressurizing. Thin, ghostly wisps of atmosphere escaped the dying vessels, sucking out the flailing bodies of countless crewmen with them.

Zeno 'Moram blinked rapidly when he saw almost all of the 4th battlegroup's ships status markers indicate total loss or crippling.

"Status!"

The frightened unggoy from earlier leapt out of his seating area and began to hysterically run around the room with his arms flailing.

"Supercarrier! The brutes have a supercarrier! Flee! Everyone flee!" he collapsed onto the floor, shaking. "We're all gonna die!" he wailed.

The massive, 27-kilometer long ship emerged from its shroud of support vessels and began engaging in combat in earnest, and Zeno steadied himself against his command console as the status blips of his ships began to disappear one by one. His battle-net communications channel was filled with the clamor of panicking voices, and for sangheili to panic, the odds must be dire indeed.

"Where did the brutes obtain such a vessel!"

"Who commands it? They aren't capable of such stratagems!"

"We're losing the..."

"The _Faith's Edge _has just been destroyed!"

"Thousands, thousands of fighter-class contacts inbound!"

"5th battlegroup... it's... it's been completely destroyed!"

**UNSC Dreadnaught **_**Atlantis  
**_**No Escorts  
In Orbit above Mandalore**

The _Atlantis_ had a purpose-built lounge and a wide array of dining rooms, luxury suites, and even concert halls, built into the secure center of the ship. Such facilities were essentially built expressly for the purpose of diplomacy. The awe-inspiring scale and grandeur of such facilities would certainly have a psychological effect on any guests, particularly when the fact that the _Atlantis_ was the UNSC's largest and most powerful warship was accounted for as well. At the moment, the Confederate delegates, led by one General Grievous, apparently the same cyborg that had already engaged in undeclared hostilities with UNSC forces, and the charismatic Count Dooku, had not yet arrived. According to Master Kenobi, Dooku had once been a just and wise Jedi. How one could fall from such heights to such evil, Admiral Xiang could not comprehend, and Dooku's history served only to further reinforce his increasingly negative view of the Jedi Order's methodology, if not their ideals.

While awaiting the arrival of the CIS delegation, the admiral was engaged in further conversation with Master Kenobi, who would be representing the Republic. In accordance with Chancellor Palpatine's wishes, Xiang had permitted the Chancellor to attend the conference, against the advice of almost every security official he knew. That the Chancellor would have so little concern of his own security in attending a meeting that would contain his worst enemies. Xiang certainly didn't see this purported sith Darth Sidious attending for the CIS, so the Chancellor's negligence was disconcerting. David suspected that he had hidden agendas to complete, but he was on David's ship, so anything he did would be closely monitored.

The admiral realized that Obi-Wan was expecting a reply. "I'm sorry, what was that again?"

"I was wondering about your non-presence in the Force."

Xiang leaned back into the soft leather of the couch. "As I've said before, your 'Force' continues to puzzle me. It seems far more magical and fantastical than can be explained by any scientific means. You Jedi say that it comes from these, ah, 'midi-chlorians,' correct?"

Obi-Wan nodded his affirmative.

"If these are indeed biological phenomena, they seem to be completely absent in all life from our own dimension. Perhaps that is why you can't sense the Force in us, though I believe the midi-chlorians that you already possess will still be able to mysteriously affect physical impulses in our dimension."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Midi-chlorians are essential to life itself. Without them, no life in our galaxy would exist."

"Well, Master Kenobi, I would appear to be alive. Unless you'd like a professional medical opinion on that?"

Kenobi arched an eyebrow.

David sighed. "I jest, of course. Alternate realities do not always follow the same rules."

Light clanking noises interrupted their conversation as the CIS delegation filed through the door, flanked by several droids. David leaned forward in his seat, fingers laced together. A man sat down at the opposite extreme of the conference table from Palpatine. He held a rigid posture, silver hairs glinting slightly in the dim lighting of the room. The hulking, ceramic-white thing lurking behind the man was clearly the cyborg Grievous, and the appearance of the man matched Xiang's briefing materials. He was the infamous Count Dooku.

David almost couldn't resist a chuckle when he realized that the room held a collection of what were undoubtedly some of the most powerful leaders alive, but then again that measure of power was hardly an amusing concept. "Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the nature of your galactic conflict. This meeting was called in a desire to see a peaceful resolution to this conflict and to avoid the involvement of the United Earth Government in said conflict. What have you to say?"

"As the leader of the Galactic Republic, lawful government of the charted galaxy, I demand that the complete surrender of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the submission of its leaders to the criminal courts of the Republic," Palpatine started.

Dooku cut him off.

"Impossible. The Republic is corrupt and decaying from within! The Confederacy offers a viable alternative. We will accept no other terms than recognition of our legitimacy and the right of any Republic planet to secede and join us."

To David, something was wrong. Politicians and warring factions would always be obstinate, and in such negotiations often insisted on what they knew they couldn't get, but here it seemed as though neither side had any desire for anything but the continuation of the war. "Gentlemen, please, we are trying to resolve this peacefully, not kill each other."

Dooku waved his arm. "Can you not see, Admiral, that this Republic is corrupt and doomed to destruction? Join us, not them!"

"I'm afraid I'm not taking sides here." David replied.

"Then this meeting is over." Dooku strode out of the room.

**Sanghelios  
Fleet Composition: 46 Vessels**

"All vessels reposition into a sphere formation!" the Supreme Commander roared.

"Supreme Commander! We cannot hold out against such a force!" a shipmaster called over the battle net.

"Then we die with honor, defending..."

Zeno was cut off by the brilliant flash of the destruction of another CCS-class battlecruiser, pieces of dying wreckage popping off in all directions. The enemy fleet seemed to still have around six hundred vessels. At this moment, Zeno 'Moram wished that he was on a human vessel's bridge, as impractical as they were, so he could peer out of the viewport and catch one last glimpse of his home before he died. But in the command center of his assault carrier, he had no such solace. He could only hope that his last sacrifice would buy enough time for ships to arrive from the other worlds that had been notified with slipspace transmissions.

Palming the holographic indicator for fleet-wide comms, the Zeno spoke. "This is Supreme Commander Zeno 'Moram of the Combined Fleet of Sanghelios. We face inescapable death, but for us, these will be good deaths. We die for the sakes of our homes and families. We die so our children need not. All ships, form into a standard line. We attack!"

An unggoy looked up to the elevated central command platform. "S..Sir! Will we really d..die?"

Zeno didn't so much as glance down. "Yes. We will all assuredly die."

No one on the bridge noticed the thud of the unggoy fainting and hitting the deck amidst the chaos.

More ships were destroyed as dozens of plasma torpedoes overwhelmed their shielding and burned through metal, warping and twisting the exteriors of ships before their inevitable detonations. The bright energy projectors of the supercarrier continuously lanced out and destroyed more ships as the last remnants of the fleets charged headlong into "knife-fighting" range. At such close range, the ships of both sides began to rake those of the other with barrage of pulse lasers.

Hundreds of Seraphs weaved elegantly and lightly amongst the deadly arcs of plasma between ships, rapidly pulsing their weapons at each other. One was clipped by the edge of a frigate's pulse laser, blasting off its side and sending it into the unshielded gunports of another ship in another explosion, small in comparison to the titanic blasts ripping apart entire ships nearby.

Acrid smoke and erupting plasma conduits burst out all over the command center. "Supreme Commander! Our shields have been disabled, and plasma turrets two and seven have been destroyed! Turrets three and four are firing beyond containment capacity and will overload within minutes."

"Tell them to keep firing!" Zeno ordered. The ship slammed violently to the side as a plasma torpedo impacted the central launch bay. Tremendous secondary detonations rattled the frame of the ship as the hull began to buckle.

"Structural integrity is failing!"

"We're all going to die!" an unggoy wailed hysterically.

**Atlantis  
Maintaining Orbit above Mandalore**

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine rose, his long ceremonial robes dragging behind him. Turning to address David, he spoke. "I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. It is a beautiful ship, by the way. How is she at the moment?"

David blinked. "A curious question, but she's well. All our strike craft are disabled at the moment for maintenance, and so are our sublight engines. We can afford to commence such activities above this planet. It's rather beautiful."

"Well then," Palpatine responded, "Don't let me keep you. When you're done here, I'd like you to return to Coruscant and discuss what terms we could offer you to convince you to join the war."

David nodded is assent. "You may try, but we are inclined to remain neutral at this time. Goodbye, Chancellor."

A young female aide leaned in once the Chancellor had left. "Sir, we don't have any maintenance scheduled."

David's expression was set in stone. "I know that, Lieutenant."

**15 Minutes Later**

Admiral Xiang was once again reclining comfortably in his elaborate command chair on the bridge of the Atlantis, once again sipping from his delicate porcelain cup of tea. His train of thought was interrupted by a notice from Tactical.

"Sir, we have contacts emerging from, ah, hyperspace, on the far side of the planet. There are precisely twenty-six heavy vessels. They're launching strikes, sir, but they're not moving to cover or to engage. Profiles match CIS patterns."

"Mr. Sanchez, that is because they are operating under the false assumption that our strikecraft and sub-luminal engine arrays are currently inoperative. Doubtless you would have noticed were you not occupied with flirting with that cerulean-colored alien. A Twi'lek, I think she was called."

The officer at Tactical flushed a deep shade of red.

"Sir, you tricked the Chancellor, didn't you?" a high-pitched female voice asked.

The admiral turned. "An impressive observation. Do I know you?"

A fairly short blonde stood behind his command chair. "First Lieutenant Arnolphe Amstadt reporting, sir! I was assigned as an aide after a transfer from the _Hard Hitter_ in the Home Fleet. The captain didn't like me. Too outspoken."

"His concerns are noted, Lieutenant Amstadt, in the report he sent me. However, you are clearly far more intellectually competent and more respectful of your duties. You deserve better than shoving my paperwork around. Consider this an impromptu field promotion, Lieutenant Commander. Congratulations. Please relieve Lieutenant Sanchez of his duties."

David swiveled his chair forward again, issuing commands. "Mr. Xiao! Underload the fusion cores to ten percent yield and divert the main matter-antimatter core's power to shields. Lock for precision jump into the center of the enemy formation. Weapons, prepare firing solutions for the secondary batteries. We'll be engaging at close range. Mr. Xiao, ensure that auxiliary power is prepared for an immediate second jump and a reposition ten thousand kilometers away. Following the second jump, divert power from the central core to the spinal mounted Super-MAC."

The bridge was a flurry of activity as all the officers at their stations prepared for combat. David had always wanted to see what the _Atlantis_ was capable of in true combat. "Execute orders on my mark."

The squadrons of enemy fighters drew closer and closer, almost within weapons range.

"Three, two, one, mark!"

The ship reemerged moments later in the very center of a completely unprepared enemy formation. Their shields were up, but none were positioned correctly to engage in combat.

"All batteries, salvo fire. Slave target acquisition to the CIC AI command and set parameters to maximum fire rate."

For the first time in her life, the _Atlantis_'s guns roared out in anger, the large MAC turrets discharging shells point-blank into the nearby CIS ships. Massive slugs tore straight through shielding and over-penetrated the hull, leaving gaping exit wounds on the opposite sides of several smaller Banking Clans frigates. Follow up longbow missiles wreaked further havoc on the already weakened hulls, breaking one ship in two and detonating the main reactor of another. The powerful hardshields on the _Atlantis_ easily absorbed the blast without so much as a shudder. Even as all the CIS vessels began to return fire desperately with guns still cold in their cradles, the _Atlantis_ dealt out death with unending barrages from smaller kinetic weapons batteries and longbow launch tubes. The sheer volume of munitions being launched was staggering, filling the space around the _Atlantis _with fiery blossoms and whirling contrails of smoke from missiles.

"Admiral, the fighter swarms are returning. They will arrive in sixty seconds at a hard burn," the newly promoted Tactical officer informed him.

"Weapons, target that last cruiser with all tertiary batteries. Finish it off quickly before we go. Mr. Xiao, execute second jump. Helm, attempt a rapid reposition whilst in slipspace, so we emerge with the spinal cannon facing directly towards our targets. Reroute power from hardshields to weapons and overcharge capacitors by twenty-five percent. Engage secondary soft shields."

The Atlantis disappeared again into a flash of blue light , sucking in the flame and smoke behind it. It appeared exactly where Xiang had intended it to, with the unstoppable Super-MAC facing directly towards the remaining twenty ships. "Weapons, they're all yours. All batteries forward. Weapons free."

All the vast array of batteries on the _Atlantis_ erupted in a spectacular display of light and fire, but no sound in the depths of space. Streaks of missiles and hot metal covered the ten thousand kilometers in microseconds, boiling away the shields of the CIS fleet before smashing their hulls into millions of glittering, flaming pieces hurtling every which way.

Admiral David Xiang leaned back in his extremely comfortable chair, the hint of a satisfied smile resting on his face. He wasn't to enjoy his peace, however, as Lieutenant Commander Amstadt walked over. "You're not going to try to convince the Republic of the Chancellor's treachery, are you?"

David looked up. "I can understand the reprimands about outspokenness now, Lieutenant. No, I won't bother."

"Good. He's a cunning political operator, and you have no evidence. I guess you'll be keeping an eye on him."

"Very astute, Ms. Amstadt. Very astute. But he's already played me as I've played him. I'm sure you've realized why," he sighed.

"This attack forces you into war, doesn't it?"

"Strictly speaking, no. But if he has leeway with the CIS, he has the ability to launch continuous, large assault on the fleet that the UNSC will post at Gateway until they force a breach and attack our own worlds. If we ally with the Republic, we can engage in pre-emptive operations. I have long-term plans for dealing with this Chancellor. No doubt he has drawn up similar plans to eliminate me. Miss Amstadt, prepare yourself. War looms on the horizon once more, with all of its blazing glory and all of its wanton destruction."

_**Harbinger of Redemption  
**_**Sanghelios**

The bombardment ceased momentarily as the fleet received a message from the Jiralhanae fleet.

An elaborate golden headpiece appeared, followed by a withered form.

"I am the High Prophet of Peace. I am the last of the San 'Shyuum, and I am your destruction, for you are all heretics and betrayers of our great Covenant."

"This can't be." someone muttered.

"Supreme Commander! We're picking up..."

The projection of the last of the prophets fizzled and died, replaced by that of a decidedly less ornately dressed and balding human.

"And I am Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Kessler of the UNSC 5th fleet. You will surrender and prepare for terms."

Zeno hit the communications glyph. "Human? How did you arrive so quickly?"

"Seems like ONI Sec3 had some experimental slipspace tech. Xylan 'Jar Vadam is with us as well. We thought we might even the odds a little."

The Prophet of Peace's ugly head reared up once more on the screen. "Humans! The cursed and cast aside! I will welcome your destruction alongside these heretics!"

Kessler's face was distorted by the fuzz of the comm device, but Zeno would have sworn that he saw a slight smirk.

"5th fleet, all ships are go for nuclear mission. Safeties are off and warheads are hot. Happy hunting."

Zeno whirled around quickly. "All ships, full power to engines! Reach minimum safe distance from the human weapon kill zones!"

Warning blips appeared on Zeno's console as two hundred human ships launched their nuclear missiles simultaneously. Zeno had seen some of these deployed in minor skirmishes with the jiralhanae before, the new Chi You missiles. They incorporated some of the technological advances from the human Nova project. A hundred would be devastating enough, but the Prophet's fleet was still clustered into a very tight sphere. No ship could survive multiple direct hits from such a class of weapon.

"Screen the launch with full release of longbow pods!"

The missiles closed the gap quickly. With the positioning of the human ships at the edge of the planet's gravity well, the jiralhanae seraphs were on the opposite side of the formation from the missiles, and point defenses could not hope to shoot down all of them, especially given the confusion provided by the thousands of longbow missiles occupying the same space.

On Kessler's bridge, the viewscreens automatically increased opacity by three thousand percent as the nukes struck their targets, bathing everything in blinding light.

"Sir, we've wiped out eighty percent of enemy contacts." tactical informed him.

"Very well. All ships, MAC rounds are now authorized. Stick to salvo fire and careful computer aiming. We don't want to hit the planet."

Hundreds of six hundred ton ferrous-tungsten shells streaked across space at a fraction of the speed of light, collapsing shields and shattering hulls. On the tactical screen, red outlines disappeared rapidly. Brilliant flashes of blue and purple lit the surreal scene as hundreds upon hundreds of jiralhanae ships were destroyed by nukes, MAC rounds, or their own explosions in the general chaos. Shattered hulks and exploding parts were flung in every direction as the fleet of the last prophet was consumed by flame. Their close formation had allowed them to hide their ace in the hole, the supercarrier, but now it was their destruction as the fleet made for an easy target for the UNSC gunners. Only dozens were left after the opening salvos.

Tactical called out to the admiral once more. "Sir! Slipspace ruptures detected! They're.. they're jumping away."

And in a moment, it was over. Human and former Covenant alike gazed together, if briefly, on the burning wreckage and confused chaos of the dead and dying ships left behind.

Aboard Vas's ship, the hysterical unggoy finally calmed down. "We're... we're alive!" he screamed. In his jubilation, he shook his comrade, the other unggoy who had fainted. "We're alive!"

It blinkingly opened its eyes. "What'd I miss?"

**1 Terran Week Later  
UEG Capital World Earth  
117 Memorial Square, San Francisco  
Secretary-General's Address**

San Francisco had once been a beautiful city, long before the Covenant arrived and destroyed everything. In the century since, it had rebounded as a thriving center of commerce, culture, and science. Much money had been spent by nostalgic survivors and historians restoring portions of the city and its past, but the broad 117 Memorial Square was a new addition, constructed in the scar cut by a Covenant CCS-class battlecruiser's energy projector into one of the city's many surrounding hills during the War. Places named after the Master Chief had been springing up everywhere, much like the English using the name Waterloo after the Napoleonic Wars.

It was another typical morning in San Francisco, the soft grey of fog painting everything in a somber shadow. Above the towering skyscrapers and around the shaft of the Orbital Elevator rising out of the bay, a small squadron of ships maintained a tight formation. Such an overt military presence was rare in a city always more concerned with peace. Commodore Day stood stiffly at attention, wondering why the Secretary-General had chosen to give the speech here of all places. The UEG and UN capital at the reconstructed New York would have been a much better idea in his opinion, but it wasn't his place to make such decisions. He looked wistfully up at the ships above the bay. He wished he could be comfortably seated in one of those warships, not stuck groundside for ceremonies. At least he had gotten a medal earlier. He turned his attention back to the Secretary-General.

"Beyond this portal we have found an incredibly rich and diverse galaxy with civilizations of a scope far greater than any we have known. It is, as of now, a galaxy in civil war between two factions. We are not safe from their conflict. In spite of our best efforts, their Separatist movement seems intent on war with us. We cannot afford another cataclysmic conflict on our own, but we have allies in those that were once our enemies. As many of you know from the media, a coalition has been formed between several species for our unified defense. What none of you know, however, is the extent of the reconstruction program initiated by Doctor Galanov and later overseen by Doctor William Xiang. More worlds have been terraformed and seeded with human life than has been previously revealed, and I myself was only recently notified. There are well over thirty billion people living on these colonies as part of Project Renaissance, and they're ready to rejoin the full authority of the United Earth Government. I won't lie to you. The war ahead may become a long and difficult struggle, but if we take the fight to the enemy, we need not see our own worlds burn like they did before under the Covenant. We can defeat them. We will defeat them. And we have just the men and women to do it. Colonel Wellsworth, please retrieve our guest."

Admiral David Xiang was seated right next to the elevated podium, a seat of honor that really should have been given to someone like the Undersecretary of the United Nations. As the clank of metal boots sounded up from the walkways beneath the square towards the opening stares, Xiang realized what the Secretary-General had planned. It was the perfect move to play given the circumstances.

A glint shined off of a distinctly green piece of metal that moved up the stairs from the under-level. It was followed immediately by a full green helmet with a bronze-gold visor and distinctive green armor to a hushed silence.

"May I present, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, the last of the Spartan-II program and savior of humanity."

The assembled crowd burst into cheering. David could imagine the reactions of everyone watching on their televisions.

"We go to war with the return of the finest soldier that humanity has ever had. And as of this moment, I am promoting Admiral David Xiang to Fleet Admiral and am appointing him the Chief of Naval Operations for this conflict. Best of luck, Fleet Admiral."

In cities across the entire planet, the revitalized military machine of the United Nations Space Command mobilized. In Shanghai, millions of foot soldiers marched down broad avenues to a synchronized beat. In London, the UNSC Home Fleet's new supercarrier flagship, the _Waterloo_, lifted out of its massive berth to join its twenty-ship escort above the city. In Sydney, dozens of automated logistics depots stamped electronic signatures on a vast array of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles. In Berlin, hundreds of Pelicans lifted off of pads and soared into the sky. In New Mombasa, the space elevator sent vast quantities of shipboard supplies into orbit. The skies above Vancouver were darkened with the mustering of the local element of the UNSC 2nd Fleet. Johannesburg's automated foundries began churning out crate after crate of assault rifles, gauss rifles, pistols, and other weapons, while Moscow prepared millions of tons of ammunition pallets to service those weapons. And in orbit, the _Atlantis_ finally joined the mustering UNSC Expeditionary Fleet at its head. Humanity here had come within inches of extinction before. They would wage total war to ensure their survival again.

A/N: I'm fairly sure quite a few errors slipped through during the writing, but I lack the patience to comb through the whole document for them, unfortunately. For the next phase of the story, I ask a question: Do you, the readers for whom I do this, think I should continue in a separate "story" on the site as some do, or continue further chapters here? The next several chapters are essentially very action-heavy sequences regarding the Clone Wars.

Regarding the whole railguns-in-space recoil thing, I read a scientific article a little while ago, and it would seem all of you are correct, and I wasn't. However, because of the nature of the production of recoil from magnetic accelerators, it's possible to disperse it laterally instead of the traditional kickback, which should theoretically make it possible to mount very large railguns on turrets. So everything works out, I suppose.

Answering Jacob's questions:

1. Yes, I hope to be able to update without a half-year gap now that it's summer.

2. Ciphers are... Well, you'll see. I can't say too much yet. They are definitely not Spartans, and they do work for Xiang.

3. I'll see about the Star Wars characters. I haven't watched much of the recent Clone Wars animated series, so I don't feel that I'm a good judge of Ahsoka's character.

4. Xiang's people do work only for him and get paid quite handsomely, but they're not mercenaries for hire. He has his own agenda. Granted, he does think that he's always serving humanity's greater interest, not his own.

5. Skirmishers are really just a Jackal variant, so they're still part of the Kig-Yar species. They and the armor abilities will probably be integrated in some way.

6. Brutes buy in to the Prophets' bull way too much, and by nature they're a warlike species and not very cooperative. I doubt any would be very willing to work alongside Sangheili and humans.

7. There was just one, and there will be very large scale battles in the course of the Clone Wars.

8. It was a "science frigate". I'll explain it away with the project lead being a cat person.

9. Arbiters are appointed to solve crises, and sent on suicidal missions. The crisis for the Sangheili has just happened, and for them Arbiter has returned to its traditional meaning of the military leader of the Sangheili since the San 'Shyuum aren't really around to rule them anymore.

10. The Sangheili and others will get to meet the Star Wars continuity.

And once again to everyone else, thank you all for the positive feedback. Please make sure to drop a few reviews in!


	17. Chapter 15: Whispers of the Dark Side

A/N: Well, two long years isn't just a good description for the chapter. I've been absent for a long time and I apologize to anyone interested in my story for that. There're a lot of reasons for my long break from writing, and while I'll give you the most salient ones here I don't have much hope for forgiveness.  
When Halo 4 was announced, I had already been behind on writing more chapters (though I had two of them mostly done) and I had been quite unsatisfied with my work. Halo 4's announcement effectively destroyed the premise of this fanfiction and obviated its plot, and so I essentially jettisoned the entire project gently into that good night.  
A short while back one of my readers sent me a message appealing to me that this story be finished, and in a sense it has been rather unkind of me to start of this journey and leave it hanging by a thread. So, after a little consideration, I assented to continuing my work, and I started completely fresh. Unfortunately, the story will have to assume that the events and canon of Halo 4 never happened and that for all intents and purposes that game doesn't exist. On that note, I hope whatever I've created here is worth the wait, and while I can't promise speedy updates I can promise that I now intend to see this tale through to the end I planned for it so many years ago.

~Flavius

Chapter 15: Whispers of the Dark Side

Two long years.

Two long years of suffering and death and war.

The Clone Wars raged across a thousand worlds and burnt through untold billions of lives, an incomprehensibly vast conflict the likes of which no one could have understood. In a single battle, a hundred ships and all their thousands of crew could be sacrificed just to buy a planet another hour, or a continent incinerated to deny it to the enemy.

This was total war. Even the former Covenant and UNSC, burdened by decades of genocidal conflict, could not possibly grasp the scope of the war that raged between the Confederacy and Republic.

At least, so the great Dark Lord Sidious thought. And only he understood the true nature of the colossal conflict. War, as others saw it, was a scourge, a blemish upon galactic civilization bearing the fruits of senseless destruction and suffering. Sidious knew better. War was a tool, a means unto a far greater end. War brought out those most precious of sentiments in people: suspicion, envy, tribalism, hatred, greed. These were the sustenance of the dark side, raw feed for its enormous potential powers.

And it was these that would allow Sidious to build his new all-encompassing Sith Empire.

These newcomers, presumptuous in their power and scarred in psyche by their own wars, would prove to be little challenge. The Dark Lord had already ensnared them in his great schemes; soon, the time would come for them to be consumed by it.

Soon, it would be time for the Jedi to fall.

Soon, the ancient Republic they built would be no more than a memory of corruption and bloat and weakness.

Soon, the Sith would once more be masters of the galaxy.

**Battle of Coruscant  
19 BBY, 0800 Hours  
42****nd**** Combined-Arms Battalion, ODST**

"I want some goddamn drones to give us some air cover, and I want them _now_! Those vulture droids will tear our armor to shreds if we give them a chance. And someone get a Jackhammer up here!"

Colonel Mark Wellsworth was, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed off. The cruiser _And All Our Stars Were Dark_ and its marine and ODST contingents had been on leave at the enormous ecumenopolis of Coruscant. Barely two days into their much-needed reprieve, the entire Confederate fleet decided it would have a merry visit to the galactic capital too. Wellsworth barely had time to finish off a fine bottle of Corellian Ale before locking into his ODST combat gear and falling feet first into hell.

He sure liked the psychedelic neon streets better with hookers than with battle droids shooting at him.

"Fireteam Charlie, proceed up into the apartment structure at ten o'clock, and provide overwatch from the fifth floor. Fireteam Bravo, covering fire. Fireteam Alpha, with me."

Wellsworth and the squad of ODSTs leapfrogged from cover to cover, using the twisted metal debris of structural damage to their advantage. The streets were choked with dust and crumbled structural materials; where the dust could be pounded out of durasteel, Wellsworth didn't know, but it interfered much more with his troopers' senses than the droids' audiovisual processors.

"VISRs up, people. Don't waste any rockets unless you have an AAT in your sights."

A stray blaster cannon shot detonated with enormous force several dozen stories up, sending a rumble through the broken streets. Everywhere the eye could see, the once-untouchable city world was ablaze. Vulture droids and ARC-170s cut corkscrews through the skylanes that would normally have been filled with glittering streams of civilian vehicles.

Colonel Wellsworth's VISR HUD outline the red profile of battle droids through the haze, marching forward on spindly legs. There were at least twenty of them, backed up by two B2 super battle droids.

"Waters, focus fire on the B1s on the left flank. Isaacson and Hernandez, fire at will. Rogers, get some sniper fire on those B2s."

The deep punch of MA7 fire was scattered by the dense air and sounded as dull thuds from within the sound dampening of the ODST helmets. Gold-orange tracers sliced their way through the haze, which reflected their light enough that for all intents and purposes they looked much like faster-moving blaster bolts. Tungsten-carbide rounds easily smashed through the plastisteel bodies of the flimsy B1s. The droids returned fire, lighting up the air with bright red bolts.

"It's like ducks in a shooting gallery," Rogers laughed.

A micro rocket hurtled out of the clouds of debris and slammed into the trooper, flinging him back onto the open street.

"Rogers is hit! Vitals are intact; his shields took most of the blast."

Mark leaned over the twisted piece of crashed skycar he was hiding behind, emptying a solid twenty rounds into one of the super battle droids. The bullets deflected off of its silvery metal skin like so much water fired from a squirt gun, sparking off a miniature light show.

He ducked back down as the droid's rapid-fire wrist blaster unleashed a torrent of red slugs into the space where his head just was.

"Dammit!" he swore.

The squad was pinned, and Rogers had the rifle. Assault rifles plainly were ineffective against the B2's heavy armor, and Wellsworth was loath to waste a SPNKR rocket on foot mobiles. Still, it was that or painful death.

Another wrist-rocket flared overhead, detonating against the side of an apartment.

"Fireteam Charlie, get that Jackhammer ready. See if you can take both B2s out with-"

Sharp, blue bolts splashed against the super battle droids' carapaces. They staggered slightly, and another volley of fire slammed into them again. One was lifted into the air, its cage crumpling inwards like so much tinfoil. The other took a third volley of fire and exploded in a cascade of fiery metal.

Mark leaned back against his shred of cover, allowing himself a small sigh. The purple glow in the dust cloud behind him could only come from one person.

Wellsworth managed a beleaguered salute. "Top o' the morning to you, Master Windu."

**UNSC Dreadnaught ****_Atlantis_****  
Coalition 1****st**** Fleet  
Attached to GAR Open Circle Fleet  
En Route to Coruscant**

It was times like these that tempted David Xiang to crack open a few extra bottles of wine.

"How the hell did the CIS fleet hit Coruscant? I thought interdictors had been placed along all known hyperspace routes. Unless they suddenly developed slipspace tech, this isn't possible."

Obi-Wan Kenobi's hologram frowned back at him. "We don't know right now, but it's a priority that we repulse the attack immediately. This could tip the entire war in their favor."

"Agreed. Still, with great crisis comes great opportunity. You can be assured that Dooku was at the heart of such a maneuver."

Kenobi stroked his beard. "And we will have an opportunity to capture him."

David stared into the holoprojector. "Some small elements of UNSC forces were on leave at Coruscant prior to the attack. I can redeploy them when we arrive to launch a strike on the Confederate flagship if the tactical situation looks favorable."

David flipped the switch on his console, switching to another frequency. "Master Chief? Get to gun bay twelve. I have a mission for you."

**Battle of Coruscant  
Lower Coruscant Orbit  
Mark Wellsworth, 42****nd**** ODST  
Attached to General Kenobi**

The thunderous burst of multicolored blaster explosions all about reminded Wellsworth why he so preferred to either have his feet planted firmly on solid ground or inside the armored and shielded hull of a starship. From his vantage point at the back of the Pelican's cockpit, the level of mortal danger that he and his team were in was painfully evident.

How the Pelican had avoided a fiery demise by blaster cannon, Mark did not know. All Pelicans certainly were lightly shielded now, but a single errant hit from a starship-mounted cannon would easily shred the bird like so much origami paper.

That unfortunate fate had already befallen one of the ARC-170 heavy starfighters that comprised the Pelican's escort. Ahead of them, the Jedi starfighters piloted by Generals Kenobi and Skywalker held point. General Grievous's Flagship was just ahead, its shields down and half its batteries silenced after a prolonged day of battle.

"Master, General Grievous's ship is directly ahead," Anakin intoned, "The one crawling with vulture droids."

"Ah, I see it. Oh, this is going to be easy," the Jedi master quipped.

The fleet of droid fighters lifted off from their berths, heading towards the small group looking for all the world like a gigantic swarm of metallic insects.

Wellsworth thumbed his comm unit. "_Atlantis_ actual, we could use some triple-A fire right about now."

"Negative. _Atlantis_ is currently engaged."

"Copy."

"You see that, sir?" the pilot asked.

Distantly, the massive bulk of the _Atlantis_ was visible, its golden shields flaring with thousands of individual blaster cannon impacts. Its main gun flashed blindingly, and the Lucrehulk in front of it vaporized into a million particles of molten metal. The secondary batteries of the massive vessel punched gaping holes into the various banking clans ships all around it.

"Yeah. We're on our own."

The flight of ARC-170s tore into the first wave of vulture droids, exchanging fire. The Jedi and the Pelican sailed through the midst of it, hurrying towards Grievous's ship.

Wellsworth patched back into Republic comms in time to hear Anakin speak, "Missiles! Pull up."

The Pelican's LADAR display picked up for individual warheads locked on to the Jedi starfighters.

"Permission to provide point defense?" the pilot queried.

Mark stared at the back of her helmet as if she'd grown a third eye. "Are you insane? This is a Pelican, not an aerospace dogfighter."

"You wanna bet a beer on that, sir?"

The pilot flicked her stick to the right and pulled, flipping the Pelican around onto its belly and aligning the nose cannon. The M370E autocannon spat out 70mm high explosive shells in a glimmering arc in the path of the missiles, detonating them in time intervals. In a space of three seconds, all four missiles were torn to shreds.

The pilot flipped the Pelican back upright again, and Colonel Wellsworth fell back onto the floor from the ceiling unceremoniously. He glowered. "Flight Lieutenant, next time you try to pull that stunt without warning me I'll give someone in Naval a call to pull your wings."

"Noted, sir."

Mark could imagine the pilot's cheeky grin. A quick peek into the back compartment confirmed that his other six ODSTs were fine, if a bit banged up after being strewn all over the passenger compartment. The Colonel allowed himself a small chuckle at seeing soldiers accustomed to falling out of the sky in a metal box groaning in discomfort before returning to the cockpit.

The pilot afforded him a slight nod of her head. "The Jedi breached the atmospheric force fields, but the emergency containment shield went up. We'll have to find another way in."

Mark nodded. "Track the location of Kenobi and Skywalker and find us the nearest rendezvous intersection from mid topside."

"Why?"

"When we resupplied with the _Atlantis_, didn't we requisition two tactical warheads?"

The Colonel definitely knew the pilot was grinning this time. "_Atlantis_ Actual, Delta 517 requesting go for nuclear fire mission."

"…One moment, 517. Establishing a warning radius for EM pulse. There, done. Nuclear mission is a go."

Two soft white contrails cut a corkscrew helix through the small span of space between the _Invisible Hand _and the UNSC dropship, impacting against the unshielded side of the ship with flash of blinding light that triggered the Pelican's automatic screen polarization.

"You've got your breach, sir. Radiological alarms are still going off, but your shields and ODST ballistic gear should keep out most of the hard stuff."

"Thanks, Lieutenant. I never did catch your name."

"Mira Castro, sir."

"Right then, Mira. When this is all said and done I'll get you that beer."

Colonel Wellsworth ducked back into the main compartment, where his hand-picked ODST squad was busy fiddling with enough military hardware and ammunition to make Swiss cheese out of a small army.

"The board is green, boys! When we blow the hatch, go to EVA position 1 and for God's sake make sure you don't overshoot your target. These rigs don't get the fancy thruster packs the Spartans' do."

The light by the Pelican's bay door flipped to yellow, then green.

Mark sucked in a deep breath. "Go! Go! Go!"

The hatch opened abruptly, blowing out all the air in the compartment into the vacuum of space. Mark and his team were pulled along for the ride, streamlining themselves into optimal positions to land in the inside crag of the hull breach that the tactical warheads had opened up. There wasn't much room for error: the breach was about two stories tall and warthog's width wide, at most.

Out of the corner of his eye, Wellsworth caught a small piece of debris slamming into one of his troopers. At its velocity, it sliced him in half. The Colonel winced. "Okay, Romero is down. Keep on mission."

The hole in the CIS cruiser's side grew before the Colonel's eyes with alarming speed. He flipped himself around, orienting feet first. Several grunts filled his comms as members of his squad hit the deck at high velocity. The soft beeping of his shield meter let Mark know that his suit wasn't too happy about it either.

"Sound off!" he managed to force out.

"Isaacson here."

"Hernandez, here."

"My ass is gonna hate me for the next year, but Chitumi is here."

"Yeltsin, present."

"Where's Walters?" someone asked.

Mark shook his head. "Must've missed impact. Here's the situation: the Jedi are moving up the elevator shaft… here," he pointed out on his wrist computer's map. If we cut up into the hallway above us and take a left through this hallway, we should reach the Chancellor at the same time that they do. Yeltsin, get the cutters. Let's move out."

**UNSC Dreadnaught ****_Atlantis_****  
Battle of Coruscant  
High Orbit**

"Munificent-class vessel destroyed by Battery 2."

"Slaving PD systems to central targeting computer."

"Recharging the spinal cannon."

"Drone wings Alpha and Beta registering 23% casualty rate sustained and 100% inflicted on vulture droid suicide attacks. Epsilon Wing has destroyed a Banking Clans escort."

Xiang mused over his tactical display amid the cacophony of battle. The _Atlantis_ seemed a singularly unstoppably bastion of destructive firepower, smashing through CIS formations like Thor's hammer.

It was a gratifying feeling.

Still, the Admiral was deeply uneasy. There were thousands more clone attack cruisers in orbit than should have been possible. The Republic did not possess the manufacturing capabilities nor the cloning facilities to push out so many troops, and that David had not heard of it was more troubling still. The communications that were intercepted daily from the Chancellor's office were frustratingly obtuse and conflicted, and the only thing that ONI had managed to decipher for certain was that there were several incomprehensibly massive secret projects under construction, one at Centax 2.

It was conceivable that one such project was the secret construction of several entire armies, but the strategic reasoning behind such a move eluded David. The Chancellor was keeping secrets, but why?

If it were up to the Admiral, there wouldn't be a rescue mission. Still, he was not unduly concerned.

After all, the Master Chief had never failed humanity before.

**CIS Flagship ****_Invisible Hand_****  
Observation Deck  
Battle of Coruscant  
Lower Orbit**

"You won't get away this time, Dooku."

Obi-Wan and Anakin launched at their opponent with a flurry of swings. Dooku's traditional saber technique deflected the blows one-handed with seemingly no effort at all.

The snap and hiss of lightsaber clashes subsided for the moment as the Jedi and the Sith Lord circled each other, looking for an opening.

"I've been looking forward to this," Dooku smiled.

Anakin sneered. "My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count."

"Good. Twice the pride, double the fall."

And with that, the fighting began once more. Between blows, a shove with the force sent Obi-Wan flying. The Jedi Master got back on his feet and cut down the two super battle droids Dooku brought with him as Anakin pushed the Sith back in single combat up the stairwell. As the pair closed in, Dooku summoned his strength to kick Anakin down and fling Obi-Wan down, collapsing a walkway onto him.

Both were distracted by the flash and bang of an explosion, as the side paneling of a maintenance door blew outwards with tremendous force.

"Sorry for being late to the party, Skywalker. We had to make another door."

Mark Wellsworth and his ODSTs moved quickly into the room, taking up firing positions.

The silver-blue of the ODST visor gave no hint as to the Colonel's feelings. "Your move, Count. Try anything and there won't be enough left of you for burial detail."

Dooku smiled and raised his hand. All hell broke loose as gauss rounds, assault rifle bullets, and entire SMG clips were emptied in Dooku's general direction. In the general pandemonium, the glow of four additional lightsabers heralded Grievous's entrance to the fray.

The ODSTs dived to the deck as the barrage they just fired at Dooku cam sailing back at them, stopped, condensed, and reversed into a cloud of metallic death by the Sith's mastery of the force. Their shields flared with multiple impacts. In a smoky haze, Anakin dueled with Count Dooku, lightsabers flashing and hissing and crackling with strikes and parries of superhuman strength. Grievous leapt down from the elevated entrance door into the fray as Wellsworth and the ODSTs picked themselves up.

The Colonel backed away gingerly from the whirling lightsaber blades. A quick glance towards Skywalker confirmed that he seemed to be holding his own.

"Focus fire on the general. Yeltsin, get that guass firing!"

"I dropped it somewhere!'

"Find it, trooper. Fire at will. Fire, fire!"

Grievous was not so fortunate as Dooku: with no force abilities to shield him from the hail of bullets, the hail of projectiles tore into his armor and very narrowly missed parts of his exposed organs and eyes. The General darted back and forth on his spindly limbs, lashing out with his lightsabers.

"Yeltsin!" one of the troopers yelled out.

A green saber flashed towards the ODST as he dived for the gauss gun on the floor. The blow penetrated through shield and ballistic armor, cleaving the soldier in two.

Mark's own MA7's clip ran dry and he tossed the rifle aside, pulling his M6D from its holster. The weapon was an antique, but it still packed enough of a punch to blow a watermelon-sized hole in anything unshielded from a hundred feet away.

He squeezed and held the weapon's automatic triggering mechanism, targeting data from the smart-linked 2x scope feeding into his VISR. The 12.7mm semi-armor-piercing high-explosive rounds flew at the droid general, who dodged most of them. One round clipped him on the shoulder, blowing a robotic arm clean off in a shower of sparks. The general stumbled back with the impact. To Mark's shock, in the corner of his eye he saw Anakin in one elegant maneuver out-duel Dooku with a rapid turn of the blade, severing the Count's hands and catching the red lightsaber out of midair. Grievous snarled and hurled himself to the side, knocking Dooku away before skittering out of the door on his remaining limbs.

Mark scanned the room wildly. "Where's Dooku?"

The Chancellor, strapped into his chair, seemed furious. The leader of the CIS had disappeared without a trace.

"Where is he?" the leader of the Republic growled, his voice uncharacteristically malevolent.

"I've no idea, sir, but we've got to get out of here."

Mark and the ODSTs heaved the fallen walkway off of Obi-Wan as Anakin freed the Chancellor.

"Pelican Delta 517, this is Romeo Actual. The VIP has been secured; requesting extraction. Our optimal egress route is down two floors and across the midship, where there should be escape pods. Destroying a pod and securing its hatch should work."

"Copy that, Romeo Actual. On my way," the pilot's voice barked over comms.

Before Wellsworth could relay the instructions, a large explosion struck the ship. Outside, a Venator-class Star Destroyer was visibly tearing into the Confederate flaghip.

Anakin plainly noticed as well. "I think we should get out of here."

Private Isaacson shook his head. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."

That plan was sound enough, until the Venator's ventral blaster flak batteries punched a hole in a critical system, and the _Invisible Hand_ careened downwards into a straight nosedive towards the glowing surface of Coruscant.

**UNSC Dreadnaught ****_Atlantis_****  
Battle of Coruscant  
Lower Orbit**

"Sir? Confederate flagship _Invisible Hand_ has just lost primary stabilizers and is going in hard through the upper magnetosphere."

David leaned back in his chair. "Plot a trajectory-"

"Sir, they're leveling out again…. And they just lost the rear half of the ship."

"Fantastic."

"Atlantis Actual, this is Romeo 2. We have secured the bridge of the vessel, and General Skywalker is guiding it in for a controlled crash."

The admiral arched an eyebrow, though he knew the trooper could not see it. "Control the crash of half of a starcruiser? Nav, plot waypoints through their angle of descent and be prepared to assist."

Outside, the forward half of the once-mighty _Invisible Hand_ streaked forward like a kilometer-long bullet spewing a trail of debris. Tendrils of white-hot flame licked rewards and acrid smoke began to peel off of burning fragments as the ship hit the atmosphere like a colossal meteor. The burning ship lit even the bright skies around it like a miniature sun, picking up speed as it punctured through layer upon layer of Coruscant's billowy atmosphere.

"They're not going to make it," the helmsman observed.

"They'll make it."

Emergency ships clustered around the vessel like gulls around a dying whale, desperately spraying it to put out flames. A fin stabilizer, stretched and malformed by atmospheric entry far beyond its design parameters, finally exploded off in a shower of metal that swatted aside an emergency response vessel like a fly. David winced.

Implausibly, the vessel was managing to decelerate slightly, even leveling out on its final approach towards a massive landing berth.

"Mr. Ricks, I do believe the might make it after all."

The helmsman stared wide-eyed at the display. "Jesus Christ almighty, those Jedi are incredible."

The _Invisible Hand_ barely nudged the hardened durasteel skin of the "runway", bouncing upwards and cascading through an unfortunate flight control tower. The vessel screeched along the long, empty flat for another two miles before finally grinding to a halt.

"I'll be damned…"

**Several Hours Later  
Senate Reception Hall**

Palpatine motioned to Anakin from beside a pillar, off to the side of the delegation of senators and Jedi making their way through the massive colonnade.

"Anakin, if I had asked to kill Count Dooku up there, would you have done it? Even when he was disarmed?"

Anakin frowned. "I… I think I would. I shouldn't think like that. It isn't the Jedi way."

"Anakin, the Jedi are beginning to falter. Surely you can sense this yourself? Your steel and nerve might be their only salvation."

Anakin's frown deepened, and he did not answer.

"Think on it, Anakin."

And with that, the Chancellor returned to his retinue, flashing smiles and bandying words. Anakin turned to see a flash of movement behind another pillar, and as he snuck off to join his wife, Palpatine's smiles deepened.

Two long years.

The plan was much longer in the making, of course.

So much longer.

When Darth Plagueis first conceived of his grand schemes and ambitions Palpatine had been weak, a pawn in the plans of a master beyond any the universe had seen in millennia. Of course, Plagueis grew too compassionate and careless, and his wisdom and hubris blinded him. Now Palpatine was the inheritor to all.

Great gears spanning galaxies were turning, great gears that hinged upon the fires of a thousand burning worlds. In the midst of such grand works the wrench that was the Coalition and its unpredictable new universe was a stabbing, constant pain, but ultimately the pain of a buzzfly. And of course, the fly caught between the gears would either wriggle out and leave them in peace, or be ground to a purple paste.

For dozens of millennia the Jedi had reigned triumphant, a sole beacon to the galaxy that scoured and burned the Sith whenever they dared to rise. For millennia they had taken what was not theirs to take. The plan was even longer in the making than the ürmaster Plageuis had envisioned.

Longer, even, than the Jedi had reigned.

From the beginning of time the Sith had sought to destroy the Republic or a Republic, for the Republic was always a Jedi creation. But the basic plan was always the same: destroy the Jedi. All those millennia Sith had failed because they had failed to separate Republic from Jedi, creation from creator.

Now, the creation would come to devour its creator whole.

The time had come. The Republic would not fall, it would rise, rise higher than it ever had and become the Galactic Empire the Sith had always wanted.

At last, the time of the Sith was at hand.

And the Jedi? The would, all of them, **die**.

A/N: **Disclaimer**: New cover photo taken from the "legendary ending" of Halo 3 and is not used or distributed for any commercial purposes. Its use shall be confined to this fan work in the public domain.

This chapter is the first of an intended three to cover the events of Revenge of the Sith, which I have watched about ten times in preparation for this undertaking. Please give feedback; I fear I'm quite rusty after so extended an absence. Some notes on the Halo side of things - while I can't incorporate Halo 4 into the plot, I very much enjoyed the game (and the UNSC _Infinity_ pretty much turned out as I had always envisioned the _Atlantis_ anyway, which was admittedly pretty awesome). I'm going to try to keep a slightly tighter focus on characters from now on. In response to a few reviews (if any of you are still around), yes, Galactic Basic is functionally English else no one would be able to communicate anyways, and to Godzilla2, I always envisioned clone armor as more intended to disperse blaster hits (it is, after all, basically a very strong plastic) so it should be slightly more vulnerable to more conventional weapons. Lightsabers would probably have issues with bullets, but then again, what's the Force for if you can't stop 'em all midair Matrix-style?  
I truly hope anyone still reading is enjoying this story, and I promise I'll try my best to push through to the end and make it a worthwhile journey.

If any of you are interested, I've also started writing original fiction under the tag consequentialistexistentiali sm, a shared account on Fictionpress. I like balancing writing fanfiction and original works; it keeps me from getting stuck in ruts like I used to.


	18. Chapter 16: Fire and Brimstone

A/N: Unfortunately, incorporating elements from the movie accurately into the story is both time-consuming and boring, so for the next chapter I do plan on scaling back on the amount I draw from the movies and leave all that up to the assumption that you, the readers, being avid fans, will be more than familiar with all of that. For this chapter at least, the plot retreading was an unfortunate necessity to clarify that certain key events do happen the way they do in the movies in spite of the crossover.

Gateway

Chapter 16

Fire and Brimstone

**Open Circle Fleet  
Republic Fleet Staging Grounds, Coruscant  
Destination: Utapau System**

General Kenobi felt a distinct sense of discomfiture at the presence of the power-armored SPARTANs, despite having served with them on several previous occasions over the long conflicts of the Clone Wars. There was something about their superhuman abilities combined with their inhuman coldness that seemed unnatural to him, wrong. Then again, there were those that leveled the same complaints against the Jedi, and Obi-Wan feared that the psychological toll of the Clone Wars had begun to spread such sentiments ever-deeper in the populace of the Republic.

The misfortunates and tribulations of Jedi internal politics and the Order's identity crisis in the conflict probably did little to help matters.

Still, such backup would be extremely helpful on the mission he was about to undertake. Dooku's body may never have been recovered, but all intelligence intercepts from the Confederacy seemed to indicate the Count's demise in the Battle of Coruscant. The same intelligence reports traced the Supreme Commander of the droid armies, General Grievous, back to the sinkhole world of Utapau. If Kenobi and the Open Circle Fleet could strike and eliminate Grievous, the Separatist threat and the entire war would be effectively over.

Kenobi wrapped up his briefing with Commander Cody. It was curious that clones so identical in so many ways could be such individuals, and that Obi-Wan could form the close bonds of friendship with them he now had. Such was the weight of war.

"Just don't take to long," he jibed at Cody.

The clone commander scoffed. "When have I ever let you down?"

"Ha. Very well, the burden is on me not to destroyall the droids before you arrive."

Leaping up over the wing of his Eta-2 _Actis_-class interceptor, the Jedi master waved off to his clone troops. The squad of SPARTAN commandos boarded their own specially-modified Pelican transport, rigged with a hyperspace booster ripped out of an ARC-170. Next stop: Utapau.

**BB-109 ****_Napoleon_****  
UNSC 5****th**** Fleet, UCS Task Force Tranquility  
Outer Rim Sieges  
Cato Nemoidia**

It wasn't strictly necessary and probably somewhat hazardous for Vice Admiral Arthur Kessler to be watching the massive battle for Cato Neimoidia from an external balcony, but the old sailor in him loved the feeling of rushing air and the slightly singed smell of the air around a battle. The air blossomed with multicolored explosions from the raging battle over one of Cato Neimoidia's arch-cities some distance away. Kessler could see a Republic Venator-class star destroyer angled ventrally against the flak, its dorsal hanger open and deploying starfighters into the fray. Another Venator stationed itself higher up, nearly brushing the down-hanging structures from the city's arches. Torrents of incoming fire from a droid Lucrehulk core parked against another spire sailed overhead and hit the structure, collapsing the center of the arch. Against the weight of the collapsing arch, the Venator's shields collapsed and the vessel cracked in half, going down in flames with thousands of civilians.

Kessler palmed the hatch and reentered his ship. "Order a secondary MAC to lock a firing solution on that Lucrehulk," he spoke into his mouthpiece, "and Nelson, give me an update on the orbital battle."

An AI hologram helpfully projected from a wall console.

"UNSC Fifth Fleet losses projected at a marathon-class cruiser and several frigates. Twelve other ships have suffered varying degrees of damage. Task force commander Zeno 'Moram's battle-net indicates four CCS-class battlecruisers lost along with ten support vessels. Enemy fleet combat readiness estimated at below 40% and dropping."

"Very good, Nelson. Tell the fleet to recall fighter-class combat elements; we cannot sustain the attrition losses that both the Republic and Confederacy can."

The AI's acknowledgement of the order was drowned out bone-jarring shudder of the vessel as a MAC discharged.

**General Kenobi  
Utapau**

"Greetings, young Jedi. What brings you to our remote sanctuary?"

"Unfortunately, the war," Obi-Wan responded.

The Utapauan arched his head. "There is no war here, unless you've brought it with you."

Kenobi overlooked the remark. "With your kind permission, I should like some fuel, and to use your city as a base as I search nearby systems for General Grievous."

The alien motioned to some workers to begin refueling, before leaning in conspiratorially.

"He is here. We are being held hostage," he whispered. "They are watching us."

"I understand."

The Utapauan leaned back. "Tenth level. _Thousands_ of battle droids."

"Tell your people to take shelter. If you have warriors, now is the time."

Obi-Wan instructed his astromech to fly the Eta-2 away as he slipped into the city's shadows. Distantly, he could hear the local delegation's departing murmurings.

"Is he bringing additional warriors?"

"He… didn't say."

"I'm in the city; I'll see if I can make my way towards Grievous." Kenobi spoke into his UNSC-issued mouthpiece as he headed towards a creature pen. From what he understood, his allies were waiting in their dropship, which they had rendered invisible with some sort of cloaking device.

**SPECWAR/Group Three  
Operating Unit Wolf  
Utapau**

"Do you reckon those tin cans can hear us breathing in here?"

Brian could have sworn he heard Kim groan into her helmet. "Charles, anyone can hear you breathe."

"Bullshit."

"No, she's right," Brian interjected, "I'm surprised you even qualified for the SPARTAN program given your complete lack of stealthiness."

Charles grunted. "Good thing the IV series doesn't go through that insane stuff the IIs did."

Matthew motioned with a hand to a viewscreen. Outside the hovering pelican, the broad Utapauan balcony was crawling with droids.

Brian banged on the cockpit door. "Does this stealth field hold if I pop the hatch?"

He received a grunt to the affirmative, and palmed the activation button next to the door. Dropping to one knee, the SPARTAN-IV leveled his M101 linear accelerator to his shoulder, allowing the smart-linked scope to auto-calibrate to the wind conditions, gravity, and minor movements of the Pelican.

"Wolf actual has eyes-on VIP targets."

Brian could see Grievous shepherding what appeared to be most of the separatist council away from the balcony. It was tempting to take a shot – a good gauss hit could probably tear at least three of them to shreds or take out General Grievous, but it would be instant death from the hundreds of droids milling about. Atop a rafter, he could see General Kenobi.

Brian lowered his rifle and zoomed in with his helmet's in-built function, enhancing audio. He saw the Jedi Master lithely drop two stories down right behind General Grievous.

"Hello there!" Obi-Wan chirped cheerfully.

Brian was certain every member of Wolf Team was internally groaning. The Jedi were certainly skilled, preternaturally so and perhaps more so than SPARTANs, but their tactics and situational awareness could use some significant improvement.

"General Kenobi," Grievous wheezed, "You are a bold one. Kill him."

Several magna guards advanced, and Brian was almost prepared to go loud with his rifle, but Kenobi effortlessly pulled on a loading trolley with the Force, smashing it down onto the group before casually bisecting the surviving droid.

Brian didn't think anyone in from his universe ever truly acclimated to the very magical and supernatural qualities of the Force. He certainly hadn't.

All the remaining droids, several hundred of them, leveled weapons at the Jedi.

"Back away!" Grievous ordered, "I will deal with this Jedi slime myself."

The droid commander reared up to his full height.

"Your move," Kenobi quipped.

"You fool! I was trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!"

Grievous shrugged off his cape and disconnected his arms, activating four lightsabers at once.

"Attack, Kenobi!"

The Jedi Master, readied his lightsaber in his opening stance. Grievous began rotating his forward blades, moving forward in an intimidating shower of sparks and light. Obi-Wan darted in with a rapid strike, and the duel began. The flurry of Grievous's four lightsabers was nearly impossible to follow, even for the enhanced reflexes of a Spartan, but Kenobi managed to deflect all the blows. A repositioning counterstrike on one of his blocks severed a hand from Grievous, dropping the lightsaber count down to three.

Grievous renewed his attack with vengeance, battering the Jedi's defensive stance. Kenobi parried a locking blow and slid his saber down, severing another hand before Grievous could react.

Brian noticed a beeping on his tactical display, followed moments later by the rocking of atmospheric explosions. The Open Circle Fleet had arrived. On the observation deck, several gunships swooped down and deployed troops that opened up in a fusillade against CIS defenses.

Brian motioned to his team. "You know the drill. Fire support and elimination of VIP targets if possible. Let's not get sloppy, people."

**Guardian of Sangheilios  
UCS Flagship  
Geosynchronous Orbit, Coruscant  
Force Composition: 1000 Vessels**

Xylan 'Jar Vadam sipped at his human coconut milk through a straw, the only effective way to consume human drinks with his mandible mouth structure. He had always found that particular beverage strangely addicting. Perhaps he would ask Admiral Xiang to allow the Sangheili to plant some trees in the Keep of Vadam.

The massive sangheili reclined in his hovering chair, contemplating the star map that filled his command room. With the disastrous strike at Coruscant and the inexplicable doubling of the Republic's standing troop numbers, the long, dragged-out war had suddenly flipped decisively in the Republic's favor. It was almost magical.

Coalition losses over the long months of conflict had been mitigated by smart deployment, but Xylan knew each soldier lost was far more expensive than anyone in this universe could understand. Coalition numbers were peas to the sheer volume the Republic and CIS fielded in battles for single star systems. Nor could the Coalition long sustain such a large scale conflict with trouble brewing on the homefront – the Insurrection gained momentum by the day, and Jiralhanae raids had never truly settled down after their disastrous strike at Sangheilios.

The massive sangheili shifted his bulk slightly, as he heard the voice emanating from a pulsating holographic globe – the relay for one of Xiang's listening devices tied into Republic systems. This one had something interesting to say, for once.

"I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi," echoed the deep baritone voice of Master Windu, "the Dark Side of the Force surrounds the Chancellor."

Another Jedi chimed in, though Xylan did not so easily recognize the voice. "If he does not give up his emergency powers after the destruction of Grievous, then he should be removed from office."

"The Jedi Council will have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition," Windu responded.

The gravelly and wizened voice the popped in could only belong to the venerable Master Yoda. "To a dark place, this line of thought could carry us. Hm… great care, we must take."

Xylan clacked his mandibles. This could prove quite an interesting turn of events indeed. He palmed the floating light-interface above his throne-chair's elevated armrests. "Xiang? Your devices have intercepted something I think you will find most interesting…"

**SPECWAR/Group Three  
Operating Unit Wolf  
Utapau**

A large-bore blaster bolt tore through the air where Brian-768's MJOLNIR-encased head had been milliseconds earlier, leaving a distinctive, warbling sound and superheated air in its wake. The SPARTAN slid down towards the ground as successive shots tracked his moving body. His momentum carried him in behind a crate. Before he could feel the thud of his boots making contact, Brian pushed off to the side with his hand and lurched back upwards as the crab droid obliterated that potential piece of cover. The brief moment of respite as the droid's sensors retargeted gave Brian a split second to scope, aim, and fire his M101 gauss.

In under half of a second, his SPARTAN reflexes dispatched a single high-velocity tungsten-jacketed round into the nexus of the droid. His HUD painted the outlines of his team members in a comforting green glow as the volume of return blaster fire from droid forces dwindled. The Republic's elite 501st was rapidly smashing through the increasingly disorganized CIS army.

"Lieutenant, Republic ComNet is reporting that General Kenobi is engaged in a high-speed duel and pursuit with General Grievous," Kim's voice chimed, "Caesar has extrapolated out the General's path to a small landing bay a few klicks from here."

"Acknowledged. Wolf team, form up and push to the outer sinkhole platforms so we can rendezvous with the Pelican."

Out of the corner of his eye, Brian caught a 102 mm high-explosive anti-vehicle rocket burst against the side of an AAT, cracking the tank open.

"Score fifty for Charles!", the SPARTAN's voice bellowed.

Kim huffed. "That's only forty-one. You're still behind."

"Tanks count as ten, Kim. They're big and bad and mean."

"And you have a rocket launcher, so grow up," she scolded.

"Keep the chatter down, team. The landing pad's up ahead."

The team boarded their Pelican, letting loose a few potshots as the dropship angled upwards and away, out of Utapau City's primary sinkhole and towards the much-smaller secondary location that Grievous and Kenobi were rapidly heading towards. The air bloomed with multicolored airburst flak in green and blue and red every which way as the Battle of Utapau raged. A wing of LAAT/i gunships swooped by, their characteristic engine warbles carrying over the din of battle.

"I wish we had dropships like those beauties," Charles sighed.

Kim murmured her assent. "Pelicans are rugged and reliable, but they can't hold a candle to a Larty. Speed, firepower, maneuverability, capacity, space-worthiness, everything about that thing is a beauty of engineering."

"Not enough, sometimes," Brian noted as a vulture droid strafing from up above clipped a gunship's engines, sending it into a death spiral. The transport and all thirty clones aboard perished in a ball of fire against the side of the massive sinkhole, lost amidst the thousands of other explosions.

**General Kenobi  
Utapau**

Obi-Wan Kenobi was a Jedi Master, sitting member of the Council, and one of the finest Jedi of his time.

That didn't make his foot any more effective against General Grievous's duranium-alloy body.

"Augh!" the Jedi Master vocalized as that foot ricocheted off of Grievous's alabaster leg armor.

The General cackled, flinging Obi-Wan to the edge of the platform where he lay dangling precariously off the edge. Kenobi could feel the wind snapping at his legs, whirling about the sinkhole that went thousands of feet down were he to fall. He could hear Grievous picking up his electrostaff, leisurely clanking towards Kenobi as the Jedi hauled himself arms-first over the edge.

In his limited field of view, Kenobi spotted Grievous's hand-blaster lying discarded on the far side of the platform where he had knocked it out of the droid general's hand earlier. Summoning the power of the Force, Obi-Wan willed the blaster towards his hand. It skittered across the platform towards him, and he caught it as Grievous raised his staff for a deathblow.

A precisely-aimed shot hit Grievous in his exposed midriff where Obi-Wan had pried open the protective duranium plating, lighting his organ sack ablaze. Grievous emitted a noise between a strangled groan and an exclamation of startled surprise as he caught bits of flaming gut in his metallic hand.

Obi-Wan kept firing, lighting what was left of Grievous's organic body alight in furious flame that rushed through the internals of the armor suit and burst out of the General's eyes before the combustion reached critical heat and Grievous burst open with a light pop, scattering flaming bits of Kaleesh organ across the landing pad.

Kenobi pulled himself back up with a groan, tossing away the blaster as he approached Grievous's well-scorched remains.

"So uncivilized," he intoned.

The Jedi Master heard the soft rushing sound characteristic of a UNSC Pelican, and a shadow fell over him as the vehicle descended vertically from the sinkhole's upper levels. A blue-armored soldier leapt off the tail end of the vehicle, landing on the platform beside Grievous's body with a heavy metallic thud.

"General Kenobi! We heard you were in pursuit of Grievous, but clearly you have the situation under control."

"Of course, Brian. I'll catch a ride with you back to Commander Cody's staging area, if you don't mind. I should alert the Jedi Council that Grievous has been eliminated."

**Jedi Master Mace Windu  
Office of the Chancellor  
Coruscant**

Jedi Masters Windu, Fisto, Tiin, and Kolar marched into the office of Chancellor Palpatine, elected leader of the Galactic Senate and the Republic. The Chancellor swiveled around in his high chair, a half smile tugging at his face.

"Master Windu!" he greeted, "I take it General Grievous has been destroyed."

The Chancellor paused briefly as the Jedi stopped, not responding to him.

"I must say you're here sooner than expected."

Mace Windu pulled out his lightsaber in a deliberate motion as his fellow Jedi did the same. "In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest, Chancellor," he proclaimed, activating his saber.

"Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?"

Windu's face was nearly expressionless, with only the barest hint of disdain. "The Senate will decide your fate."

"I _am_ the Senate!" Palpatine intoned, his voice suddenly raspy and menacing.

"Not yet."

The Chancellor stood, his robes flowing outwards. With a flick of his wrist, a lightsaber that had lain unused for so very long materialized in his hand.

"It's treason, then."

Sidious's red saber ignited, and before the party of Jedi could so much as twitch the Sith Lord had vaulted in a flip over his desk, corkscrewing towards the Jedi with a roar. Agen Kolar went down almost immediately as Sidious's blade impaled him, unable to react to the sheer speed of the Sith's assault. Master Tiin moved to attack the Sith's exposed back as his comrade fell, but Sidious slashed backhandedly and killed him instantly.

Kit Fisto and Mace Windu managed to repel the whirling frenzy of strikes that was Lord Sidious, being forced into a desperate defense even though they had Sidious flanked on both sides. As Windu managed a single hefty blow against Sidious's saber, the Dark Lord pirouetted and slashed across Master Fisto's chest, ending his life as well.

It was only Windu and Sidious left now, possibly the two mightiest duelists in all the galaxy. Their sabers crashed furiously, Windu's concentration never wavering as the Sith forced him back blow after blow. Every millisecond felt like a fraction of a breath away from death as the Jedi Master fought for his life.

Sidious swung at Windu's midsection, and the Jedi Master barely jumped back in time to avoid it before clashing sabers with the Sith once more. A few more powerful swings later and Windu was left staring at Sidious's blade pointed directly at his chest. Summoning the ferocity and agility of his Vapaad lightsaber form, WIndu suddenly brought his saber down and around Sidious's, turning critical vulnerability into a saber lock. Sidious's strength was nothing in the face of Windu's, and the Jedi Master mercilessly pushed the Sith back.

The pair fought on, with Sidious utilizing the full array of his acrobatic abilities to dance around Windu and strike at him with unbelievable speed and anger, but they could not stop the Jedi's slow and unstoppable advance. Windu kept striking with a consistent rhythm, forcing the increasingly desperate Sith Lord back. With a one-handed swipe, both lightsabers burst the large window pane of the office's observation deck.

Sidious renewed his offense, attempting several inwards and feinting strikes that nearly put Windu off-balance. Seeing an opening, the Jedi lashed out with a powerful force-aided kick that threw Sidious back and his lightsaber out of the window. The Sith shimmied backwards, writhing almost like a fish out of water.

Windu leveled his lightsaber at Sidious's face. "You are under arrest, _my lord_," Windu said, the last part spoken with a mocking contempt. Windu felt a profound sense of serenity and relief. The Sith threat was contained. The Republic would survive.

**BB-109 ****_Napoleon_****  
UNSC 5****th**** Fleet, UCS Task Force Tranquility  
Outer Rim Sieges  
Cato Nemoidia**

The plastering of Admiral David Xiang's face across a 90-inch viewcreen did little to improve the admiral's deeply concerned expression. Vice Admiral Kessler was probably even more concerned than his boss, since in most circumstances Xiang never seemed to display any sort of outward negativity.

"Admiral Kessler, I want half of the 5th Fleet to be ordered back to Gateway immediately under the command of Commodore Boufin. We're receiving tremendous amounts of unusual back-channel chatter in Republic MilInt channels."

"Acknowledged. The battle is in our favor at the moment anyway; we can spare the ships."

Xiang's face blurred out for a moment from interference before clarifying again. "Arthur, watch your back out there. I wouldn't trust anyone if I were you, and make sure you've got your drives spooled up for an emergency slipspace jump if the shit hits the fan."

"Yes sir."

Xiang's face blanked out and was replaced by a tactical map of the arch the _Napoleon_ was drifting under, exchanging light weapons battery fire with anti-air artillery located on the arch's underside.

"This is the Admiral speaking. Commodore Perry will take a detachment of ships and proceed to Orbital Staging Alpha, and then depart for Gateway. All remaining vessels, cease individual actions and conform to battle pattern D-12 around the Napoleon in a holding pattern. Recall all groundside troops if possible and stay restricted to support actions."

Vice Admiral Kessler watched as his ships moved in elegant arcs across the deep-blue sky, an increasing sense of unease gnawing away inside.

**Jedi Master Mace Windu  
Office of the Chancellor  
Coruscant**

Mace Windu could sense Anakin's presence before he noticed the young Jedi Knight out of the corner of his eye. Skywalker exuded all the same roiling confusion and uncertain loyalties that he had when he told Windu of the Chancellor's treachery. If anything, he was more conflicted now than ever.

"Anakin! I told you it would come to this," Sidiuos sniveled, feigning weakness. "I was right. The Jedi are taking over!"

"The oppression of the Sith will never return," Windu snarled. "You have lost."

"No, no, no! _You_ have lost!" Sidious growled, flinging a wall of lightning at Mace Windu. The Jedi Master ably deflected the lighting with his saber, forcing it back onto the Sith with raw brute strength.

"He's…a… traitor!" Palpatine cried out as his own lightning licked at him.

"_He_ is the traitor!" WIndu insisted, keeping his attention focused on Sidious rather than Anakin as he barely managed to keep the power of Sidious's force lightning at bay. The young knight had proven his allegiances by telling the Jedi of the Chancellor.

"I have the power to save the one you love," Palpatine cried weakly, "you must choose!" Windu wondered briefly, but paid it no mind as he struggled with the sheer power of the dark lord's lightning.

"Don't listen to him, Anakin!"

"Don't let him kill me," the chancellor implored, "I can't hold it any longer. I-I-I.. I'm too weak. Anakin! Help me! Help me!"

Master Windu now saw the full danger posed by Palpatine. The Sith Lord was more powerful than any Jedi save Windu himself or Master Yoda, and his grip on the Republic was absolute. The Force guiding Windu left no room for doubt – if left alive, Sidious would spell the doom of the Republic and the entire Jedi Order.

"I will end this, once, and for all."

"You can't," Anakin protested, "He must stand trial."

"He has control of the Senate and the courts. He's too dangerous to be left alive."

"I'm too weak," Palpatine dissembled from the corner, sounding about as authentic as a sniveling child. "Don't kill me. Please!"

"It's not the Jedi Way," Anakin insisted, and had Windu been paying attention, he might have noticed the young Jedi's increasing pallor and the yellowing of his eyes. "He must live!"

Windu thought for a moment, feeling the guidance of the Force. There could be no other way. The Sith Lord had to die.

"Please don't," Sidious begged.

"I need him!" Anakin thundered, but Windu was no longer listening. He raised his blade for a single, deadly kill.

"Please, don't!" Sidious begged for the hundredth time.

"**NO!**" Anakin roared, activating his blade and in one fell swoop severing Master Windu's arm.

Windu felt pain, searing pain such as he had never, ever known, and he screamed in agony.

"_Power!_" Sidious yelled as lightning lanced forth from his fingertips once more. Anakin only stared, unmoving as one of the most legendary Jedi in history melted away before him. "**_Unlimited power!_**"

And with that, Mace Windu was no more.

"What've I done?" Anakin sank to his knees.

"You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin. Become my apprentice. Learn to use the Dark Side of the Force."

"I will do whatever.. you ask."

"_Gooood_."

Anakin's eyes were red and brimming with tears as he looked up. "Just help me save **Padmé's life**. I can't live without her."

Sidious's voice was gravelly, low, and halting. "It is a power that only one has achieved, but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret."

Anakin crawled to Sidious's feet on his knees. "I pledge myself to your teachings."

"Good," the Sith's voice rasped, "the Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith, you will become. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth.. Vader."

"Thank you, my master."

"Rise."

"Because the Council did not trust you, my young apprentice, I believe you are the only Jedi with no knowledge of this plot. When the Jedi learn what has transpired here, they will kill us, along with all the Senators."

Anakin voiced his assent. "I agree. The Council's next move will be against the Senate.

"Every single Jedi, including your friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, is now an enemy of the Republic," Palpatine declared as he raised his black hood.

Anakin bowed his head for only a moment. "I understand, Master."

"We must move quickly. The Jedi are relentless; if they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end. First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padme."

"What about the other Jedi spread across the galaxy?" Vader asked.

"Their betrayal will be dealt with," Palpatine said with a note of joy. "After you have killed all the Jedi in the Temple, go to the Mustafar system. Wipe out Viceroy Gunray and the other Separatist leaders. Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy, and we shall have… peace."

A/N: There's Part 2 of the 3-parter plot arc covering the events of Revenge of the Sith. The last, I promise you, will be fittingly spectacular and will very probably defy a lot of expectations as to what goes down.

To Greed11 - yes, that last part was a bit rushed. I guess I was getting a little too excited to rush that chapter into publication to finally be back in the swing of things.

To MordalfusGrea - Given that the Republic has even larger ships like the Mandator-II class Star Dreadnaught, I'm sure the Coalition's larger ships don't seem all that large. Supercarriers are perhaps an exception to that, but then again it's easy to lose sight of the fact that fleets, armies, politics, and life in general in the Star Wars universe exists on a scale several magnitudes larger than that of the Halo universe.


End file.
